morrow, First-day, in the forenoon. Also a lecture was announced to be given by C. D. B. MILLS at Sickles' Hall, in Kennett, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Both these meetings

were largely attended, and the interest seemed unabated to the end. At the former, addresses were given by JOHNSON, HASKALL, WILBER and MILLS.

We again call the attention of the community to the enor mity of the evils resulting from intemperance in our land, and ask for renewed exertions in behalf of suffering humanity.

To aid us in search of truth, in its behalf we offer some statistics from the U. S. Census of 1870. At that time we had in Pennsylvania 15,745 retail liquor dealers, or one to every 223 persons, and one for every 50 adult males in the State. Dr. Hargraves, a careful statistician, in his work, "Our wasted Resources," computes the annual sales of the retail liquor delers necessary to maintain their business and support their families at $78,000,000. This estimate embraces only the sales, or direct cost to consumesr, and does not include the indirect cost occasioned by crime, poverty, idleness, accidents, bad debts, sick ness, taxation, maintaining police, courts, jails, poor-houses and asylums which necessarily come from the traffic and use of dis tilled and fermented liquors.

Compare only the direct and known cost of this business with some of the productions of the State as given in the sme census, and we will find this $78,000,000 to be more than onethird of the value of all Pennsylvania's agricultural products; more than one-tenth of all her manufactures; more than onehalf the amount of all wages paid, and but little less than the entire receipts of all our railroads; which vast sum is an exhausting drain upon the industry of the people.

The facts plainly show that the liquor traffic stands foremost among the causes of hard times, and is the heaviest burden weighing down our industries and retarding the return of business prosperity.

In the State of Maine, as the result of the settled policy of prohibition, business prostration, deprecitation of property, bankruptcies and defalcations are far less than in other States, and

the annual sale of intoxicants has been reduced from $11,000,000 to less than $2,000,000.

Therefore it behooves us to examine this question more thoroughly and to consider whether we would not more effectually further our cause by making it a political issue, and voting only for known prohibitionists to fill our public offices.

II. - HOME INSTRUCTION.

We believe much good would result, if parents were more alive to the necessity of instructing their children by precept, as well as by example, in the principles of morality and virtue as they understand them. In our zeal to be practical, there is danger of a too exclusive reliance on our examples, as though such were the only means of instruction.

Knowledge of virtue is the only safe basis of uprightness. It is better to do right from conviction that from habit. Infinitely better to act from a sense of duty than from a love of imitation. But this home instruction should never be stern or dogmatic. We should lead, not drive our children's minds to conclusions. We should encourage them to a thoughtful use of their own powers of reason and judgment rather than to rely on ours. With child-like simplicity we should walk with them inviting them to aid us in the discovery of truth. We should take much pains to implant in our homes the elements of moral and intellectual life.

Our firesides and tables should be practically dedicated to the free and full discussion of all the great questions of the time. In these the children should be encouraged to participate.

Such a course cannot fail to produce a generation of moral, intelligent, thoughtful men and women.

III. CHURCH AND STATE.

The zeal manifested by some of the so-called evangelical Christians of our country to force church morality on the people, should excite the solicitude of every friend of free institutions.

Not satisfied to enjoy their natural and constitutional

rights as liberal, peace-loving citizens, and to rely upon the moral power of Christianity for its propagation, men seek by insidious means to gain greater advantages for themselves at the risk of undermining the dearest rights of the American people.

Their efforts to engraft on the National Constitution an amendment recognizing the Bible as the supreme law of the land, and Jesus Christ as the Ruler of the nation, clearly indicate the dangers that threaten us. Well, may we exclaim that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

The renewed efforts to enforce the Sunday laws, and the persistency with which the Jewish and Christian Bible is kept in the public schools, seemingly, in defiance of the State Constitution, which says that no religion shall have any preference according to law, and that no money raised in this Commonwealth shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian institution, and the vehement earnestness with which the nontaxation of church property is insisted upon, justify us in the conclusion that a large portion of the evangelical sects design to use the government as a machine to enforce their religion upon the Public. Our duty in this matter of Church and State is clear and plain. We are willing to accord to every religious sect all the rights we claim for ourselves. We have the legal and moral right to worship in our own way, or not to worship at all, as may appear the most rational and consistent with our views of right and duty. Therefore, we do most earnestly and sincerely appeal to the law-making powers of our country, both State and national, to exercise their highest judgment in all matters involving the rights of conscience, and the union of Church and State.

IV. RELIGION AND MORALITY.

Recognizing the fact that the religious sentiment is the deepest of all the sentiments implanted in the bosom of our nature, its intuitions and convictions the most sacred trust committed to man, we cherish with profoundest interest all that pertains to its right cultivation and just direction and expression. As rightly or wrongly interpreted, it is either the most precious

boon and benign blessing, or a source of the direst injury and calamity known to the human race.

Profoundly believing, as we do, that religion is becoming in our time increasingly emancipated, broadened and freed, dissociated from dogma, and acceptance of books, institution or observance, as embodying and prescribing its essential elements, we rejoice in the firm conviction that it is to become more and more clearly seen to be one with the simple, plain worship of Truth and Beauty: The constant endeavor of the soul, after all wisdom and knowledge and excellence.

We believe that, thus interpreted, it opens the largest and and richest field for the spiritual growth and culture of man individually and socially; and we commend its study and appropriation in this breadth, to all liberals, as an object worthy their best attention; and especially we urge its sedulous inculcation by them on all fit opportunities in the minds of the young.

We do moreover at this time renew our earnest testimony in behalf of the superlative claims of the primal moralities. Moralities as expressed in the law of virtue, chastity, selfrestraint and purity in the life; and we deeply deprecate and emphatically condemn, under whatever pretext or persuasion it may be sought, any attempt to loosen the hold or weaken the sway of these in the general mind, as criminally harmful, directly subversive in tendency and sure effect, wherever it may succeed, of the very foundations of moral order and the life of society itself.

V. FUNERALS.

While we would pay due respect to the feelings and the customs of all classes of people in respect to the burial of the dead, we are constrained to suggest that greater simplicity in the conduct of funerals would be commendable.

On such occasions, it is desirable to avoid ostentatious display on the one hand, and the somberness which grows out of a superstitious theology on the other. Better than any elaborate ceremonies of an official character is the practice on