the duty of the modern pulpit?

It cannot, indeed, be said with truth, that the Church has not faced
the problem. There is one of the causes of social misery, and that the
very chief, against which the Church, especially in your country, has
nobly asserted herself. Drink is the cause to which magistrates and
judges, and all who are brought directly into contact with the fallen
and criminal classes, attribute three-fourths of the evils of
society. Drink is the despair of every Christian worker who has
ventured down among the pariahs of our civilisation. Against this the
Churches have not been inactive. But we are just beginning to
acknowledge that, though drunkenness is the great cause of misery,
there are other causes behind it which must likewise be coped with.
Why do the people drink? This question, when it is impartially
considered, will bring many abuses of our social system into view,
which must be put out of the way before the evils of drunkenness can
be stopped. Excessively prolonged labour exhausts the system and makes
it crave for artificial stimulus. Excessively low wages, with no
prospect of rising in the world, beget a spirit of recklessness, which
makes men ready to turn to anything that promises to bring a gleam of
sunshine into their monotonous lot. Ill-furnished and insanitary
abodes drive forth their inmates to seek the brightness and comfort of
the saloon. These are specimens of the new questions which demand the
attention of those who feel the reproach of our defective
civilisation.

There is one type of remedy which the Church has liberally supplied.
To those already fallen she has extended a helping hand. The
Evangelical Revival produced a spirit of philanthropy which has
invented schemes for the relief of every form of human woe; and these
have multiplied to almost unmanageable numbers. But we are beginning
to see that, multiply them as we may, they must be totally
insufficient as long as the causes of misery are undealt with. If the
causes remain as strong as ever, new victims will be manufactured as
fast as philanthropy can rescue those already made. The time has come
to ascend higher up the stream than has hitherto been done, and cut it
off at its source. In other words, we must direct the whole force of
Christian philanthropy to the stopping of the causes of social misery.

For this work new weapons will be required; and perhaps the principal
of these will be legislation. The prophets appeal