on the human constitution, and are alone possessed of the requisite knowledge properly to direct, and draw the correct inferences from, their observations.

In the year 1827, at its annual meeting, the Medical Society of Massachusetts offered a premium for the best dissertation on Intemperance. In 1828 the premium was not awarded, but in 1829 it was obtained by Dr Sweetser, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic in the University of Vermont, at Burlington, and an eminent practitioner in that place. This dissertation, which seems to have well merited the preference given to it by the Society, enters very fully into the physiological and pathological history of Intemperance, and describes, in a full and perspicuous manner, the effects which the use of ardent spirits gradually has in vitiating the actions of the several organs, impairing their structure, and finally inducing grave and

incurable diseases.

We do not, however, notice the work for the purpose of giving any account of it, but merely for the purpose of recommending it to the public, as adapted to do good to the cause in which all are now so much engaged, and which seems to be going on under the happiest auspices. The perusal of it is calculated to impress, very strongly, that most important of all doctrines on this subject, that the moderate use of ardent spirits is at the bottom of the mischief; that the moderate use is pernicious; that the moderate use is totally and unreservedly unnecessary. This is the burden which should be rung in the ears of every man, woman, and child in the twentyfour States, till it is as familiar in their ears as household words; till parents know it for a proverb, and children for a byword. It is one of the truths of the same kind, and to be as undeniably proved, as that cleanliness is better than filth, pure air than foul, warmth than cold, for the preservation of life and health; and which yet, like these same axioms in times not very remote, has been forgotten or unperceived by the vast majority of mankind, though the evidences for it have ever been present in their view. It is true that the dissertation before us is not adapted for the perusal of all or most of those who require to have this truth enforced upon them; but it is adapted for those, who, by their superior information and intelligence, lead the opinions of the society in which they move. It will afford to such persons the facts and illustrations by which they may be enabled to enforce the known truths in regard to the use of ardent spirits, upon those with whom

they are conversant, and who have not the means of access to it themselves. It would enable them to give grounds and reasons for the opinions they express, and the advice they give. It is from this consideration, that we think it might be well worth while for Societies engaged avowedly in the business of reformation, to take some pains to recommend and distribute this pamphlet.

ART. VII.-1. Pietas Londinensis; or the History, Design, and Present State of the various Public Charities, in or near London. By A. HIGHMORE, Esq. London. 1810. 8vo. pp. 984.

2. Philanthropia Metropolitana; or an Account of Public Charities in London, established since 1810. By the late A. HIGHMORE, Esq. London. 1822. 1822. 8vo.

3. A General, Medical, and Statistical History of the Present Condition of Public Charity in France; comprising a detailed Account of all Establishments destined for the Sick, the Aged, and the Infirm, for Children, and for Lunatics; with a View of the Extent of Pauperism and Mendicity, and the Means now adopted for their Relief and Repression. By DAVID JOHNSTON, M. D., Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, &c. &c. Edinburgh and London. 1829. 8vo. pp. 606.

THE subject of poverty, its sources, evils, and remedies, is exciting much attention at the present day. With respect, particularly, to the legal and established modes of relief, it is, like many other subjects of national or general interest, undergoing a strict investigation. In England, where, notwithstanding the large provision, public and private, legal and voluntary, for their relief, the poor have multiplied, till, by the proportion they bear to the whole population, they have become a formidable class of the community, and the burden of supporting them almost intolerable,-in England, it is not surprising it should be viewed with an anxious and almost trembling interest. The periodicals and daily journals groan with complaints of the enormous evil. It has afforded abundant matter for speculation; and statesmen in their cabinets, and philanthropists in their studies, have busied themselves in framing laws, or forming ingenious

theories upon the subject, proposing either the extirpation or decrease of the evil. In the mean time, paupers themselves are fearfully increasing; and impotent and defenceless as they would seem individually, they threaten by their numbers to be the Scourge of the land.

For ourselves, as we have had occasion in a preceding number to remark, we have little confidence in sanguine schemes of reform, or in those pleasant plans invented by some ardent well wishers of mankind, for the extirpation of poverty and crime. 6 The poor ye shall always have with you'-is not only the declaration of him who came to relieve them, but is a part of the established constitution of the world. It is the positive ordinance of God, the will and pleasure of the great moral Governor, that the poor shall never cease from the land; that in every community of men there shall be those, who, by their wants or their sorrows, their perplexities or straits, shall engage the sympathies and call forth the charities of their more favored fellow creatures, so that whensoever we will we may do good. We consider poverty, therefore, as one of the inevitable conditions of humanity, which it is not the design of Providence, and therefore not within the province, if it be even within the power of man, to remove; but which human wisdom and benevolence, prudent legislation and private charity, and above all, as combining and directing all these, the blessed influences of Christianity, may effectually relieve.

That mendicity, or, more properly, the state of poverty, can never be abolished, so that in any considerable collection of mankind, there shall be no poor, is evident from the slightest consideration of the causes that produce and continue it. Indeed, for this, as well as for most of the varieties of men's condition, there are causes continually at work in the social, civil, and moral constitution of things. The original diversities in the tempers, dispositions, faculties of men; their aptitude, or the contrary, to improve the opportunities with which they may be furnished; the inevitable changes of human life, wholly independent of man's control, by which, agreeably to the appointment of God himself, there is a perpetual alternation of prosperity and adversity, not only to the members of the same community, but to the same individuals and families; these, with innumerable other causes, local or temporary,—such as war and peace, or the unexpected change from either, a single year of famine or scarcity, a revolution, like that of France,

impoverishing the rich and totally changing the state and prospects of families for generations, will never fail of maintaining the due measure of poverty in the earth. And even if, by some marvellous changes, all mankind were made as equal in their possessions or means, as they are imagined once to have been in their rights, this Utopian equality would last scarcely a day. The lazy and the wicked, and not they alone, but the shiftless, the extravagant, and improvident, would soon fall back into dependence; and shortly would there be the same necessity for poor laws and alms-houses, as is now the fruitful burden of complaint and system-building to lawgivers and philanthropists.

The provision made for the poor, in the earliest periods of the Jewish history, is a sufficient proof, that under no constitution of government, even among a people, like the Israelites, under the special guidance of the Almighty, is there to be expected an exemption from poverty or its attendant evils. Some of these provisions are no less beautiful than wise. They express a most considerate regard for the feelings and claims of those who have 'waxen poor.' What, for example, can exceed the tenderness and delicacy, with which the dwelling of the poor debtor is guarded from intrusion? When thou dost lend thy brother anything, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge.' God himself was pleased to become the guardian of the poor man's hovel. Insolence or rapacity was not permitted to enter, and even charity itself must not intrude abruptly or unbidden. There might possibly be there some little monument of better days,'† some cherished relic of friendship, which no money could purchase, and which, not even for the relief of urgent want, could be resigned. At least, it might aggravate the suffering of the poor inmates to be compelled to expose to the eye of the stranger, or even of the neighbour whose aid was implored, all the humbling circumstances of their condition. Therefore, it is added, Thou shalt stand abroad; and the man to whom thou dost lend, shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee.' Other commands, inculcating the same humanity and considerate regard, more especially towards the widow and the fatherless, might be cited from the poor laws' of Judea.

*Deut. xxiv. 10-12.

+ See Graves on the Pentateuch.

The means, which have been devised at different periods and under different religious institutions, for the relief of this great evil, have been, as might be expected, very various. Before the benign influences of Christianity were felt, the poor were but little regarded. The whole genius of Paganism, of every form indeed of idolatry, was unfriendly to benevolence. It was essentially cruel and hard hearted. The licentiousness which it either permitted or encouraged, had all its usual effect in destroying the kind sympathies of our nature, and the poor were left among the neglected and despised of the world. Nothing of the public charities, nothing of the system of relief, so common in christian countries, was known or even thought of before the appearance of our Saviour. He took the poor, if we may so speak, under his special protection. He offered to them an equal share in the blessings of his religion, and distinctly mentioned it, even in connexion with the miraculous testimony by which its truth was to be established, that his gospel was preached to the poor.

And who will deny, that Christianity, in its whole doctrine, spirit, and promises, is most graciously adapted to the wants and condition of the poor, or that charity, in its widest extent, is among its essential virtues? To what else but to its precepts and influence are to be ascribed, if not the kind sympathies, yet certainly the active benevolence, and the humane institutions, which are found everywhere in Christendom, and nowhere else? The instructions of Christ himself, the Acts of his apostles, and the early records of the Church; the appointment of deacons to act as guardians or overseers of the poor, and to provide especially that the indigent widows were not neglected in the ministrations of charity; the frequent mention of contributions in the Epistles; and the collections sometimes made through whole ecclesiastical districts, or communities of churches, as that of Achaia, or Galatia, for the relief of distant and needy brethren,-all attest the strong interest which was taken in the condition of the poor, and the high importance that was attached to this evangelic grace of charity. For a long period, also, perhaps for the space of two or three centuries, while the disciples retained in any good degree their primitive simplicity, their poor appear to have been relieved by individual benevolence, or by the stated contributions of their churches. Afterwards, when the church of Rome had obtained the ascendant, and its peculiar institutions, with its wealth and re