THE advocates of total abstinence are injuring rather than helping their cause, if the indecent attack recently made by Dr. Miner and his friends upon Professor Peabody be taken as an example. We do not know whether the former have the entire sympathy of the Prohibition party or no; but we do know that the abusive language which a certain henchman of Dr. Miner's used in reference to the College preacher is thoroughly disgraceful and contemptible. Dr. Miner himself also alleged that Dr. Peabody had advised young men to drink moderately rather than not drink at all. This the latter pronounces "an absolute and an unqualified falsehood. The only possible ground or pretence for it is that in a book of mine, in treating collectively of all forms of luxury, indulgence, recreation, and amusement, I say of them collectively that 'temperance is evidently fitting, and therefore a duty,' and that it is 'better than abstinence, unless there be specific reasons for abstinence.' " An attempt to wrest language as clear as this to an argument in favor of moderate drinking is argumentative hypocrisy. We speak plainly, because we feel that Dr. Peabody has been grossly insulted by his opponents; one of them going so far as to declare him "a corrupter of morals and unfit for his place." These are groundless accusations, and their groundlessness was evident even to the accuser. In other words, Dr. Miner and his friends have been guilty of the basest perversion of facts and the most unwarrantable insolence to Dr. Peabody. The students of Harvard College are justly indignant at this cowardly attack upon one so highly esteemed and beloved by them.