many
even the poor pittance which should cover their nakedness in the
Sabbath-school and the house of God.

As, therefore, the children of the poor had wrung out so much of the
bitter dregs of spirit-drinking, he was anxious that Temperance
Societies, the sworn foes of spirit-drinking, should, with their
earliest, warmest efforts, return blessings to them for years of sorrow,
oppression, and wrong. Sabbath-school teachers, too, he saw to be among
God's choicest instruments in the work of reform. Young, yet serious,
active, and benevolent, possessed of the confidence of their scholars
and their parents, and from their own character, and their connection
with a noble system of Christian enterprise, exercising a mighty moral
influence, wide as the world, what could they not do for the
regeneration of the public mind, especially of that mind which shall be
all active, in good or ill, when the present generation are mouldering
in the grave.

He commenced, therefore, the work of reformation in his own
Sabbath-school, and he commenced in the right way, by communicating
information, and bringing both teachers and scholars to think and apply
the truth for themselves. He wished none, he said, to join his ranks
against the great enemy, but volunteers; he wished for no influence over
any one, but the influence of truth, and no bond upon any but the bond
of an enlightened conscience. He introduced a proposal for each teacher
in rotation to read an interesting extract to the scholars on some
suitable subject, and temperance of course was not excluded. The mere
hearing of the principles of Temperance Societies was sufficient to make
converts of some of the teachers; for what can be more rational than
abstaining from intoxicating drinks and promoting temperance? but it was
not so with others.

Freethinkers may talk as they please about a man having no more control
over his belief than over the hue of his skin or the height of his
stature, still it is a simple fact of Jamie's experience, that it is
mighty hard to convince a man who does not wish to be convinced; and
that, when anybody first resolves to continue to drink, he is then
marvellously fertile in objections against the Temperance Society.

One of the teachers especially, who had been at different times
_overtaken_ by the bottle coming from the market or fair, was so opposed
to temperance, that when his turn for reading on the subject came, he
had still some excuse; and Ja