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 which, in the dread silence of the night, is the port teutons omen for the coming morrow.

"What hope has she to cheer her? what sign of joy comes to penetrate the gloom closing thicker and darker around her little ones, for whom alas! she sees nothing but a future of degradation and shame.

"Oh, God! the sufferer's friend! Thou alone knowest the wringing anguish, the desolation of sorrow that has made its home in thousands of poor mother's hearts, to be revealed only in that judgment day when the tempter and his victim shall be summoned to the bar of eternal justice, supplicants for that mercy which, while extended to all, abates naught of the exact measurement of the relative claims of each, neither absolves any from the righteous law of retribution which visits them in due proportion to their guilt.

"The first and most important question for us to decide, is the person to whom attaches the greatest guilt. Where is the fountain-source of this long catalogue of woes? It is of little use to lop the branches while the root is left untouched. It is wrong, as well as useless, to condemn the drinker and spate the seller, if we wish to eradicate the evil. Eradicate it? You will doubtless say that is impossible, and perhaps it is, so long as avarice and selfishness rule the human heart. But we may place it under the ban of society, we may award to it the same condemnation as to other sins, and, like high way robbery, make it the exception,—not the rule. Is it not ten-fold worse?

"The highway robber only plunders the pocket;