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ON TRUTHFULNESS.

GOD is truth, and His ways are unmixed truthfulness, and as everlastingly and persistently opposed to all that is insincere, hollow or false, as light is to darkness. In the day of His power, the untrue can no more stand before Him than fuel can before fire. Our Lord traces the origin of all deception to His enemy and ours, declaring him to be the father of it.

When our Saviour was on earth, no form of sin moved Him so deeply as hypocrisy.

He not only drove out of the Temple those who made merchandise of religion, but His severest words are addressed to false professors (Matt. xxiii. 13). And once when we are told that He looked round with anger upon His audience it was when they refused to give an answer which truth required.

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His earnest soul recoiled from all that was double. Why tempt ye Me, ye hypocrites?" "Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss ?"

We need that God's love of truth should be planted in each of our hearts. As this grows, we begin to be aware of our secret faults, longing to be cleansed. How frequently we exaggerate, how often do we want to appear better than we are, how anxious to stretch facts so as to make them appear more to our advantage and less to our disadvantage; how unwilling to accept blame though we know it to be our due; how prone to say things without sufficient ground for our assertion, or to accept or attempt subterfuges to cover our retreat from a false position! We have little idea till we watch ourselves closely how prevalent are these temptations to deviate from strict truth.

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Nor is this altogether confined to intercourse with our fellows; it comes in even in our holy things. Are we truthful in our confessions, our thanks, our prayers? Do we tell just the truth to God? Do we remember we are in the presence of the God of Truth?

The more we know of God, the more we shall seek after perfect truthfulness in our whole life and conversation, while in looking upward beyond this world we are certain that nothing that loveth or maketh a lie can enter the pearl gates; our careless ways will not do there. Bright and joyous, doubtless, but pure and transparently truthful will be our intercourse in the presence of the Lamb.

A. H. R.

SIR WILFRID LAWSON'S PERMISSIVE PROHIBITORY LIQUOR BILL.

ITS INDIRECT BEARING ON INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.

As may be gathered from our title, we do not propose in this paper to discuss the direct bearing on individual liberty of Sir Wilfrid Lawson's proposal; at the same time, in order to render more explicit the meaning of our title, we will make some reference to that subject by way of preliminary remark.

The effect of the Permissive Prohibitory Liquor LAW, whenever it becomes such, may be considered in three aspects:

1st. Its immediate direct effect;

2nd. Its mediate direct effect;

3rd. Its mediate indirect effect. This last is the subject of our paper. however to each :

With regard

1st. Few words are needed to explain or apologise for its immediate or absolute direct effect-That is purely enabling or permissive. The law gives a liberty not hitherto possessed, to all the local communities of the United Kingdom.

That liberty is :-To vote with authority on the question "Shall or shall not the magistrates (or other licensing authorities) within the three years next ensuing be permitted to grant, in this locality, licenses for the common sale of intoxicating liquors ?"

If this communal liberty could by any possibility be granted without the infringement thereby of any individual's liberty, we apprehend not a voice in the kingdom would be raised against the proposal. The

new liberty would be welcomed as a boon. From this (first) Absolute, or Immediate direct consequence of the Act, we, therefore, pass to consider the further aspects.

The 2nd, or Mediate Direct effect may be considered under two heads-

(a) The effect on the magistrates (or other licensing authorities);

(b) The effect on the seller of intoxicating liquor. This effect is mediate, because it depends on the vote of the community-nay, more, it depends further, on whether the community vote on the question at all; (the Act in this respect is purely permissive-if no one in the community desires, or asks for a vote, no vote will be taken); yet is the effect direct, inasmuch as it is a result directly contemplated by the Act, and an integral part of the scheme, for which the Act provides the machinery.

As far as we are aware, the Direct effect on the licensing authority is not considered a hardship; but the second aspect under this head-the direct effect on the liquor seller-is strenuously objected to.

So far, however, as he is concerned, the issue is so clear as between the public and the publican, it has been so exhaustively argued, that we do not care to linger upon it. Moreover, our conviction is, that the real stronghold of opposition to the Bill is the inert weight of popular distaste, or objection to it; and it is, therefore, the obscure basis of this distaste-a distaste founded rather on sentiment than on reasonthat we propose to endeavour in this paper to draw to the light of day, to discuss, and, if possible, remove.

3. Thirdly, therefore, we take up-The Mediate*

* Mediate, as already explained, because contingent on the local vote. Indirect, because it is not the direct purpose of the Act to interfere with the Consumption, but only with the Common Sale of intoxicating liquors.

Indirect effect of the Act upon the liquor consumer. To this the public mind has invariably leapt. The "rights of minorities" has been the banner which has been zealously uplifted by our self-styled political economists in opposition to all who support Sir Wilfrid Lawson's Bill.

We cannot but admire the directness of aim of the educated instinct that thus thrusts aside the determined efforts of the advocates of the Permissive Bill to rest the defence of the Bill on lines of their own choice-viz. 1st, The extension of a new liberty to the people; and, 2nd, The withdrawal of a privilege from the liquor sellers. We say,-We cannot but admire it. We read it as saying, "You urge that you prohibit not the consumption, but the sale; but it is not the sale that you fear, it is the consumption that you fear, and which does the mischief." Such a statement is approximately true, and yet is not all the truth.

The consumption must doubtless exist ere the evil against which the Alliance,* on behalf of the nation, cries out is produced, and if there were no consumption, we need not think much of the sale (though even then the destruction of the wealth of the country to the extent of £100,000,000 annually were a fair subject for legislation); but we cannot overlook the fact that not only the consumption of the liquor tempts to increased consumption, but that the public common sale tempts also to increased consumption. In other words (as Alliance advocates put it), "you cannot have these wide-spread facilities for supplying the consumer, without tempting to a consumption that demoralises the nation, corrupts our youth, develops crime, produces

"The United Kingdom Alliance, to Procure the Total and Immediate Legislative Suppression of the Traffic in Intoxicating Liquors as Beverages," formed June 1st, 1853.

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