During the last decade the field of battle has become as broad as the national domain, and new and powerful forces have come into the contest. Previous to 1860, there were onlj' about half a score of local temperance societies among our Catholic population. Now there are probably a thousand, with an aggregate of 200,000 members. The Woman's National Christian Temper- ance Union, which grew out of the Ohio crusade move- ment, and was organized in 187-1, has spread its network of societies over more than half the United States, and, by its conventions, publications, and earnest labors, is wielding a powerful influence. The Independent Order of Good Templars, which originated in Central New York in 1851, leads all the other compact temperance organizations in numbers and continued success. It now has about 400,000 members in the United States, and perhaps 300,000 more chiefly in England and her colonies. The friends of temperance are organized, more or less thoroughly, in every state of the Union. Forty-one newspapers, the organs of the various tem- perance bodies, are disseminating information on all sides.
All the great religious denominations among us have given emphatic utterance to their sentiments, not onh' endorsing fully the principle of total abstinence, but some of them declaring, as did the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1872, that they "regard the manufacture, sale, or the using of intoxi- cating drinks morally wrong ;" recommend the use of
unfermented wine on sacramental occasions ; and record their conviction that the traffic in alcoholic beverages should be suppressed by the strong arm of the law. There probably is not in Christendom any other body of people so large, and so free from tlie use of intoxi- cants, as the evangelical Protestants of llie United States. The agitation among us cannot cease till the right is victorious.
IV. The Temperance Cause in Forei(jn Countries. — The first temperance society in the British isles was formed in New Koss, Ireland, in August, 182il. A soci- ety was formed at Greenock, Scotland, in October of the same year. Early in 1830 a society was organized at Bradford, England. The reform began, as in America, in opposition to the use of distilled spirits only; but in 1833 a society was formed at Preston, England, on the principle of total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks. The British Association for the Promotion of Temperance was formed at Manchester in September, 1835, on this basis; and the new pledge in a few years wholly superseded the old. This organization after- wards changed its name to that of "The British Tem- perance League." It is still laboring, with accumulating power. The United Kingdom Alliance was formed in 1853, and is still in vigorous operation and doing ex- cellent service. Its specific aim is the •' total legislative suppression of the traffic in intoxicating beverages." The form of law which the Alliance is laboring to se- cure is one giving " the rate-payers of each parish and township a power of local veto over tlie issue of licenses." A bill, drawn up by Sir Wilfred Lawson, in accordance with this aim, has been offered in Parliament every year since 18G3 without success, but not without en- couraging gains. The Alliance, meanwhile, is spending a hundred thousand dollars annually in advocating the measure. The Scottish Temperance League, formed in 18-14, combines both branches of the work — the reform of the victim and the legal suppression of the traffic. The temperance sentiment of the Scottish people found expression, in 1854, in wliat is called the " Forbes McKen- zie Act," a law which closes all public-houses in Scot- land during the whole of the Sabbath, and on other days of the week from 11 P.M. to 8 A.M. The League has an income of about $35,000, maintains a vigorous Publication House, and keeps eight or ten lecturers con- stantly in the field. The Irish Temperance League was organized in Belfast in 1859, for "the suppression of drunkenness by moral suasion, legislative prohibition, and all other lawful means." It has an income of about 810,000, publishes a journal, and employs agents to labor throughout the island. Tlie women of Great Britain have also organized a Christian Temperance Associa- tion, meeting for that purpose at Newcastle-on-Tyne in April, 1876, and they are engaging heartily in the good work.
In Sweden a temperance society was formed in Stock- holm in 1831, and some five hinidred more in various parts of the kingdom during the next ten years. King Oscar himself became a' member, and also caused tracts and papers to be regularly distributed in the army and the navj'. Great benefits have followed among the people, and the reform is still progressing.
In Australia, jMadagascar, India, and China the re- form has begLui its work, which, we trust, will never cease, in all its broad field, till the enormous vice and crime at whose extinction it aims shall be found no more among men.
V. Liierature. — Jlany valuable works have been pub- lished which treat of the matters that form the basis of the temperance movement, among them the follow- ing: Beecher [Lyman], &lx Sermons on Temperance (1823); 'i!\Qtt, Lectures on Temperance (1857); Perma- nent Temperance Documents (1837-42) : Bacchus (Lond.) ; Anti-Bacchus (\hii\,); Carpenter, Physiolof/y of Intem- perance; WWsan, Patholof/y of Drunkenness ; Pitman, Alcohol ami the State; Richardson, Alcohol, and Tem- perance Lesson Book; Farrar, Talks on Temperance;