Excerpt from The Church and Temperance: A Paper IT is now about a half-century since the first ao tive and united efforts in the interest of tempe rance commenced in this country. Then our population was about twelve millions, mostly American in'birth and feeling. Then the use, more or less, of various kinds of intoxicating drinks was almost the universal habit; among the farmers when gathering their crops, and at the table, its use in the form of cider and Spirits was the general custom; in cities and towns there were very few families that did not have it in some form on their tables and sideboards; it was offered to friends on almost every occasion, as a a token of hospitality, and its use was considered a necessity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.