4 JANUARY 1868, Page 29

Clerical Testimony in Favour of Total Abstinence. Edited by the

Rev. Thomas Hooke, M.A. (Tweedie.)—Certain clergymen have found that by signing the pledge they were able to persuade others to follow their example. If they exhorted the drunkard to be sober he always asked if they abstained from all liquor, and so long as they took their one or two glasses he claimed to be allowed his ten or twenty. To deprive him of this argument they have become total abstainers, and their self-denial does them credit. It seems, however, from the testimony of one of them that even their example induces few drunkards to sign the pledge, and that half the drunkards who do sign it relapse. If so, the experi- ment can hardly be considered successful. Whether it ought to succeed is quite another thing.