Temperance Lecture.

Last evening a fair-sized audience assembled in Saunders Theatre to hear the lecture of the Rev. Joseph Cook on "Temperance." The lecturer was introduced by Mr. Webster, president of the Harvard Total Abstinence League. Mr. Cook began by comparing the prohibition question to the old slavery issue, and said he hoped that his hearers would live to seethe liquor traffic declared an outlaw thoughout the civilized world. The temperance movement takes root easily in the Anglo-Saxon nature. For the love of moral purity inherent in it awakens a great sensibility to moral questions, and we should do our share to further the cause. The lecturer then discussed the educational and political aspect of the prohibition movement. Life insurance companies take cognizance of a man's habits in drink. The total abstainer obtains better terms than the moderate drinker. The question of total abstinence is answered, and there is no longer any discussion upon the subject that adds anything new. We can tolerate elderly men who take their wine, for they were brought up under an old regime, but there is no excuse for a young man who drinks. After dwelling upon the injurious effects of alcohol upon the heart, and so on the whole organism, the desirability of "no-license" was advocated, for it must be wrong to license the sale of any commodity which produces decay of the body and misery to the mind.

The schools throughout the United States are teaching total abstinence under penalty of losing their subsidies from the State governments. The lecturer brought this fact out as more noteworthy, because of the well-known corruption of our legislatures, which he considered at some length.

The growth of our large cities has been immense, but New York of to-day is but a pigmy when compared with the New York of the next century. We must do something to root out the liquor trade in these great centres, for it is well known that, other things being equal, the sale of whiskey increases faster than population, if that population lives in towns or cities.