"Your reference to 'thrift' is especially true.

I have often smiled at the pious fervour with which the heads of large families with small incomes have embraced teetotalism! I have long thought that the motto '_in vino veritas_' contains in it far more of '_veritas_' than is dreamt of in most people's philosophy, and that the age of rampant total abstinence is the age of special falseness.

Of course, the evils of drunkenness can scarcely be exaggerated,--and yet they can be and are so when they are spoken of as equal to the evils of dishonesty: the former is indeed brutal, but the latter is devilish, and far more effectually destroys the souls of men than the former.
Nevertheless in our poor money-grubbing land, the creeping paralysis of tricks of trade, &c., is thought little of; and the shopman who has just sold a third-rate article for a first-class price goes home with respectable self-complacency and glances with holy horror at the man who reels past him in the street.
"I desire to say this with reverence and caution.

For we all need the restraining influences of the blessed Spirit of God, as well as the atonement and example of His dear Son.

But when we see the present tendency to anathematise open profligacy, and to ignore the hidden Pharisaism (the very opposite to our Lord's own course), and the subtle lying of the day, it seems as if those who ponder sadly over it ought to speak out." Doubtless, there are many more fads and fancies, many other sorts of perils and trials that might be spoken of as an author's or any other man's experiences: but I will pass on..