much whisky--and usually very bad whisky--not merely twice a year,
but as often as they could get it, during the whole Iron Age, and,
for aught anyone can tell, during the Bronze Age, and the Stone
Age before that, and yet are still the most healthy, able,
valiant, and prolific races in Europe? Had they drunk less whisky
they would, doubtless, have been more healthy, able, valiant, and
perhaps even MORE prolific, than they are now. They show no sign,
however, as yet, of going the way of the Red Indian.

But if the craving for stimulants and narcotics is a token of
deficient vitality, then the deadliest foe of that craving, and
all its miserable results, is surely the Sanatory Reformer; the
man who preaches, and--as far as ignorance and vested interests
will allow him, procures--for the masses, pure air, pure sunlight,
pure water, pure dwelling-houses, pure food. Not merely every
fresh drinking-fountain, but every fresh public bath and wash-
house, every fresh open space, every fresh growing tree, every
fresh open window, every fresh flower in that window--each of
these is so much, as the old Persians would have said, conquered
for Ormuzd, the god of light and life, out of the dominion of
Ahriman, the king of darkness and of death; so much taken from the
causes of drunkenness and disease, and added to the causes of
sobriety and health.

Meanwhile one thing is clear: that if this present barbarism and
anarchy of covetousness, miscalled modern civilisation, were tamed
and drilled into something more like a Kingdom of God on earth,
then we should not see the reckless and needless multiplication of
liquor shops, which disgraces this country now.