HEAR GREATER CLERGY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 30, 30 October 1918, Page 6

HEAR GREATER CLERGY

SPEAIv ON PROHIBITION. POPULARISING ' The Prohibition demonstration at the Town Hall on Sunday night was a vigorous attempt to populuriso irreligion. Prohibition as a principle is not only unchristian, it is anti-Christian. Anu just as the Kaiser says "Uott init uns, God will give us the victory," so the Prohibitionists say "God is with us; Christ is with us, and ours must bs the victory." That was tile sum and substance of tlie political and anti-Christian utterances of tlie Rev. Messrs. Faucourt, Hodder, Davies, North, and Sinclair. Let us hear what other clergymen say about" this Mohammedan doctrine of Prohibition, Tho Rev. E. A. AVasson, Ph.D., present rector of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, says: "Few Old Testament observances, ecclesiastical or social, were complete without wine. Jesus reiterated the oaiictification of wine in the worship of the Eternal Father, and "made Ins disciplos continue this memorial of Himself till the end of time. Jesus w:as no total abstainer. If drink is wrong, then Jesus was wrong, wrong in practice, wrong in ills precept, wrong in His principle. The wino in excess that causes drunkenness is everywhere regarded as' among God's choicest blessings to man. The idea of prohibiting this wine by law is a latterday discovery, but it is entirely opposed to tho teaching of Scripture, whicli lias been given by inspiration.

The Rev. D. Cunningham Geikie, the eminent Scottish divine, in his "Life of Christ," says the wino used by Jesus and made by Him at tlie feast was the usual fermented wine'of tho grape; and in discussing the Cana miracle observes that "Jesus thereby sanctioned the temperate use of fermented wine."

To John Knox, John Calvin, and Martin Luther' wines and ales were as allowable as water or milk. Thomas Carlyle, in "Heroes and Hero Worship," says: "John Knox had his pipe (200 gallons) of Bordeaux, too, in that old Edinburgh house of his." Of John Calvin it is written: "Sometimes in the middle of the day he would suck an egg and take a glass of wine"—see page '136, "Dyer's Life of Calvin." (This is tlio origin of the egg cocktail of to-day.) Calvin's salary/ at Geneva included "two casks of wine."— Paul Henry's "Life of John Calvin," p. 269. But Luther was the man. Mrs. Luther, at Wittemberg, brew.ed their own beer (Costin's "Life," p. 511), and in the evening Luther would say to his pupils, "You young fellows must drink the Elector's health and mine in a bumper. Next to a fervent Lord's Prayer and a good heart there is no better antidote to care." Ibid, p. 558.

If what was good enough for the Christian fathers and the Founder of Christianity, why should these latter-day saints who have departed from the truth, giving heed to ductrines of devils, as St. Paul says, turn up their noses at alcoholic liquors, and make people believe that old wives' fable that the temperate use of these beverages is not consistent with Christian law, teaching, and practice? Is it any wonder that people who are really Christians are leaving the Churches to the possession of mostly professors only? Then John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, drank "small beer" and cider. He had a set against spirits and tea, but ho wrote: "jVhy should he (Dr. Cndozan) condemn wine toto genere. which is one of the noblest cordials in Nature?" .vide Tyerman's "Comments," vol. 111, p. 3. No wonder, adds Tycrman, that "Wesley comes into conflict with modem teetotallers." What would Wesley say to tho Rev. W. A. Sinclair, who claimed on Sunday night that he represented tho Church founded by John Wesley?

The Rev. D. Rainsford, of St. George's Episcopal Church: '"l'o drink is no sin. Jesus Christ, drank. To keep ail hotel is no sin." But the small men of the Church are loud in upholding the Prohibition movement. The temperance of the Gospel on this point, and the general well-being of the religious life, of the community are, apparently to them of littlo consequence in comparison. Such is tho seductive influence of a so-called popular movement upon the men of small narrow mentality, who llatler their fellows by thanking God they are not as other men.—(Published by arrangement.)