dantly the kind Father of all has provided for the enjoyment of that which is pleasurable, whether it addresses the eye, the ear, the taste, or the touch. What painting is to the eye, and music to the ear, sweet and pleasant flavours are to the taste. In all nations and in all climes man has indulged in the pleasures of the palate. Wine and strong drink was the promise of the prophet of God to His people for obedience to His laws. The Psalmist thanked God for the wine that made his heart glad. Our blessed Saviour wrought His first recorded miracle on earth to contribute to the pleasure of the guests at a wedding feast; and we cannot but recognise this as one of the most important relations in which alcohol stands to man. In the terrible power which this substance possesses of drawing man from the obedience he owes to the laws of God, we may, perhaps, see one reason why man is permitted to employ it. It may be that he is thus reminded that he is expected to exercise the greatest vigilance and self-control when he is enjoying the highest pleasure. It may be that this is a part of that discipline which we have to go through whereby we may strengthen those volitions which give the highest character to man.

I have said also that alcohol is a Poison. In common with other things which we take as food, as common salt and oxalic acid, it is à poison. In common with many medicines it is a poison. Taken in an overdose it kills as quickly as strychnia or arsenic. It may act as a slow poison by oft-repeated small doses; but this is no argument against its use. Many substances, when taken in small quantities, act as invigorating medicines on the system, which, when taken in large

quantities, destroy life. This shows us how careful we need be in its employment, and how necessary it is for all who take it, or are responsible for the admi nistration of it to others, to know the nature of its action upon the system.

I have endeavoured to give you in this lecture an explanation of the action of alcohol on the system, and I trust that every one who hears me will remember how potent an agent it is for good or for evil. It would be better for those who cannot resist its seductive influence that they had never tasted it. It would be better for the world that it had never been known, unless it is employed rationally and with a sense of the responsibility it involves. It is one of the temptations that daily beset us in life, and from the evil influence of which we should daily pray to be delivered. It is one of those creatures of a kind Providence by the abuse of which we bring down upon ourselves an everlasting curse, and by the right use of which our highest and best feelings may be kindled towards the Maker and Giver of all good.

P

ON WINES, SPIRITS, AND BEER.

HAVING drawn your attention in the last lecture to alcohol, I will now proceed to speak of those beverages of which it is the most distinguishing ingredient. Although the various liquids which we drink under the names of beer, wine, and distilled spirits have very different flavours and properties, yet they all agree more in the possession of alcohol as a constituent than in any other property. I would caution you, however, against supposing that the quantity of alcohol these beverages possess alone determines their price or consumption. I calculate that in the form of beer the alcohol costs on an average about twopence an ounce, in the form of ardent spirits it costs from threepence to sixpence an ounce, whilst in the form of wines it costs from sixpence to two shillings an ounce. It is

very clear, therefore, that these beverages possess other properties than those depending on their containing alcohol. It has been suggested that the alcohol itself may be different in character in these beverages; but, as far as its chemical composition goes, this would appear to be impossible. Alcohol, like water and a hundred other chemical compounds, has a fixed and definite character, and would not be alcohol were its properties so changed as to produce different effects on the system. I have suggested that alcohol, on being temporarily mixed with water, may be in a different physical condition as compared with its state in wines and beers, and may thus produce a different effect on the membranes of the stomach. But we have no evidence that the alcohol itself differs in the composition of the various forms of fermented beverages.

It will be, therefore, my task, in this lecture, to draw attention to those other constituents which enter into the composition of beer, wines, and spirits, and which seem to modify to a very considerable extent the action of alcohol, and which also address themselves to the palate, and constitute the basis on which the choice of these substances as articles of diet depends.

I begin with Beer, as the beverage which is most commonly drunk by the large mass of the people in this country, and also as a good example of the modifying influence which other agents exert upon alcohol in a beverage. The practice of making a fermented liquor from wheat or barley seems to have been known from an early period among mankind. Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians made a fermented drink from bar