smite me, and the mother with the children." It is time English society had that feeling about strong drink, lest it come and smite us, and the mother with the children. But I am asked to say something to interest you in TEMPERANCE WORK FOR THE YOUNG. The drunkards of our streets may be rescued; but the children ought never to need rescuing. If we can sit still and see the troops of children playing in our streets to-day become the drunkards of the next generation, then our shame will be great. But we cannot sit still. Our Master, who gave His life for the sheep, has met all our professions of love for Himself with the command, "Feed My Lambs!" If we love Him, we must care for the lambs. In a few years the adults who throng our streets will be gone. But think of the children! They are always coming in in vast numbers. Thousands of the men and women of to-day are hardened in habits of sin, bound in chains which no human hand can break. We visit them, we pray with them, we exhort them, and yet we go out from their presence with a kind of despair. It is wrong to despair, but the drunkard is our difficulty, and the Band of Hope child is our opportunity. We must not shrink from the difficulty, but we must spring to embrace the opportunity. In 1878 there were 3,495,000 children on the registers of the day-schools inspected by the Government; and 775,772 of these were over ten years of age. In reality, the future of England lies folded up in those children! And the struggle of the Church, the School, the Band of Hope, and of a wise statesmanship, ought to be to keep those 3 millions from being transferred from the registers of the school to the registers of the workhouse, the police-court, the gaol, and the madhouse. The Saviour points to these, and in a voice of infinite pity, He asks, "Shall these be torn up in pieces for whom I died, and whose angels in heaven do always behold the face of My Father?" "Feed My Lambs!" Take London, alone. Last year it appeared, from reports coming out of the office of the Registrar-General, that there were in London no less than 740,577 children between the ages of three and thirteen able to go to school; and, mark this, 60,640 children between thirteen and fourteen. Then take this. Up to Midsummer last, the officers of the School Board of London had reported on 11,309 cases of destitute children not chargeable with crime. This will show us that if we can lay hold of these children before their moral nature has been tampered with by social temptation, before the drink appetite has been added to, and has violently disordered, their natural propensities, we shall get the upper hand in this fight, and starve out the garrison which is now firing upon us from our own citadel. Alas, we dare not hope to save every child. Numbers are born with their feet in the net, realising Kingsley's terrible words, "drunkards from the breast." But by the help of God we will do what we can, knowing that there is no work on earth or in heaven so great as to " from death and to hide a multitude of sins." save a soul Now let us see what is being done. Noble men and women are endeavouring to respond to the Saviour's call. The United Kingdom Band of Hope Union report for this year 3,588 Bands of Hope associated with local Band of Hope Unions, an increase of 497 societies over last year. 104 new societies were formed last year in London alone, and 101 in Lancashire and Cheshire. But these figures are only partial. There are no local Band of Hope Unions in the greater portion of Ireland and Scotland, and none in thirty-seven English and Welsh counties (as counties). Yet Bands of Hope exist over all these areas. Our strength stands thus : ... 1. Affiliated Bands of Hope 2. Non-Affiliated Bands of Hope (probably) Estimated membership ... 3,588 484,000 2,000 270,000 But the Juvenile Branches of the Church of England Temperance Society in thirteen dioceses number 91,469 members, and the Temperance Committee of the Wesleyan Conference report that there are now 2,033 Wesleyan Methodist Bands of Hope, E with a membership of 202,516. In the Young Abstainers' Union, established to promote abstinence amongst the children of the middle and upper classes, there are about fifty branches, with upwards of 3,000 members. So that, on a moderate estimate, the Band of Hope Division of our National Temperance Forces comprises 8,000 Societies, with a grand total membership of 960,000. There is something surprising in the idea of this million of young people marching on to win a brighter future for dear old England. The drink trade will have to reckon with them. Statesmen will have to reckon with them. They will help to change the whole thought of England on the drink question. Before many years have passed their one million will have become three millions, and they will have in their hands the tremendous powers of free government. May God make them, for all good causes and against all His enemies, a host "clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners"! The work now being done to reach the young is by no means confined to Bands of Hope. There are some 4,000,000 of day scholars in the kingdom, and these must be reached by every means consistent with Government regulations. In London 20,000 scholars in 200 elementary schools have listened to illustrated physiological temperance addresses from Rev. Dr. Paterson. In February and March last, drawing-room meetings were held at Finsbury, Streatham, Notting Hill, Camberwell, Regent's Park, and Chelsea, at which 600 masters and mistresses of London day schools attended by invitation, to hear addresses on temperance and to partake of social hospitality. Illustrated lectures have been given to 5,190 young people in Training Ships, Orphan Asylums, and Industrial Schools. Miss Robinson reports from her sick chamber that two-thirds of the children of our married soldiers are pledged abstainers, and that 295 army medals were issued last year for twelve months' membership of these Bands of Hope. In London there are ten District Band of Hope Unions, comprising 672 societies. Ten speakers' plans are issued, with over 5,000 appointments in the year. The great Board School system of the metropolis offers a fine field for temperance instruction. In 1875, at a gathering o medical men in Edinburgh in connection with the annual meetings of the British Medical Association, it was resolved that steps be taken to induce School Boards to include among the subjects of instruction the action of alcoholic liquors on the human body. At length the National Temperance League suggested to Dr. Richardson and Dr. Ridge the preparation of the lesson books which bear their names. And now the School Boards of London have admitted the Temperance Lesson Book to some of their schools. Dr. Richardson's book is being read in forty schools by children in advanced classes, while no less than 7,000 ordinary reading books containing temperance lessons are in use in the higher standards of the London Board schools. The children can choose their prizes from a printed list which contains the Temperance Lesson Book, and between 300 and 400 have chosen it. Mr. Frank Cheshire has given 114 lectures, 94 in Board Schools and 16 in those of the Church of England, addressing 24,000 children. He writes of one school—“The master is very earnest, and nine-tenths of the upper standards and three-fourths of the lower are pledged abstainers." Of another school he writes that "fully 90 per cent. of the scholars are members of the Band of Hope." The same favourable feeling in regard to temperance instruction is growing among the teachers of Church of England schools. At the last Annual Congress of the Church Teachers' Association, held at Wolverhampton, it was resolved "to form an association of Church school managers and teachers for the promotion of temperance teaching in our elementary schools." This is in the right direction. Deputations have visited Training Colleges. Two hundred and fifty representative members of the National Union of Elementary Teachers have been addressed in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey. It is gratifying to find that in other countries temperance instruction in day schools is winning favour. Prizes have been offered of £10 each, to be competed for at the Government schools in New Zealand, at an examination in Dr. Richardson's school book on Alcohol. The schools of the United States now permit their teachers to use the same book. Scribner's Monthly, in a recent article, referring to the decision of the New York Board of Education to adopt this lesson book, says: "So long as 600,000,000 dollars are annually spent for drink in this country, every ounce of which was made by the destruction of bread, and not one ounce of which has ever entered into the sum of national wealth, having nothing to show for its cost but diseased stomachs, degraded homes, and destroyed industry, these boys should understand the facts, and be able to act upon them in their responsible conduct." These facts represent a scheme and march of organisation from which the greatest results may be augured. Organisation is, of course, only the best arrangement of human effort. Apart from personal conviction, energy, and enthusiasm, organisation is a lifeless framework-an unfulfilled plan. Sydney Smith once said, in a charity sermon, that "A never saw B in distress without wishing C would relieve him." And so, mere feeling will not save these young lives from the curse which impends over many of them. Systematic work is the only worthy expression and authentication of deep feeling. Remember that in 1879 the police arrested for drunkenness 7 children between 10 and 15 years of age; 1,401 persons between the ages of 15 and 20, of whom 471 were young girls; 4,271 persons between the ages of 20 and 25, of whom 1,540 were females; 608 domestic servants. It is to stop this that you are asked to continue your labours, and to enlist recruits from every side. We must not be discouraged by the magnitude, stupendous as it is, of the evil against which we are arrayed. Cromwell's words ought to be remembered by every religious mind :-"It is not the encountering of difficulties makes us to tempt God; but the acting before and without faith." If we believe that Christ is the First and the Last, and that all evil things are under His sentence of death, we are justified in this assault upon the drink system, and we must repeat it again and again until-over the graves of some of us, perhaps-this flag is carried to victory. We have no doubt that this Band of Hope work is answering the end for which it is designed. Some lapses of course occur. When they arrive at years of independence no doubt some of our |