THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION.

Evening Star, Issue 3732, 8 February 1875, Page 3

THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION.

To the Editor. Sir, —Mr Stanford’s mistake lay in his replying to the first effusion of “ Observer,” since most advocates of temperance weie of his opinion beforehand on the liquor question, while no one who expouses total abstinence could be expected to cry “ Peccair” or retract his assertions at the rev. gentleman’s bidding. If Mr Stanford’s observation that this igno ranee of the Good Templar faction is “shameful” he not correct, the laws of governing thought are null and void. Mr Hooper, the logician, says—“ The facts in support of the Temperance cause are incontrovertible”—a curious sentence for a logician to f-ame. Nobody pretends that fact can be controverted. What we want is better proof than has yet hem produced that the stories told in the matter are narratives of fact. With much taste and delicacy Mr Hooper, in his little attack upon a clergyman, drags in the subject of religion. I presume even Mi Hooper will hardly deny that Mr Stanford, though differing from him in opinion, may possibly be as sincere as himself; and, in that case, it was hardly necessary to throw a clumsy slur upon him in his clerical capacity. But the attempted parallel between the two questions of religion and total abstinence, as a matter of lovic, is a failure. The truth of the Christian religion has been abundantly and variously proved long ago. It has triumphed over nineteen centuries of opposition of every description, after being proclaimed “by many infallible signs.” The greatest of the writers on Christian evidences says “The truth of Christianity depends upon its leading facts, and upon them alone. Now. of these we have evidence that ought to satisfy us -at least until it appear that mankind have ever been deceived by the same. We have some uncontested and incontestable point to which the history of the human species hath nothing similar to offer. ... It (religion) survived an age of free inquiry and scepticism, and has long stood its ground in the field of argument, and commanded the intelligent assent of the greatest minds that ever were.” Now, when Messrs Hooper and “Observer” can speak thus of their “ hobby horse,” they may look clown upon persons who maintain that in the abuse, not in the use, of stimulants lies the evil. —I am, &c,, _ Amachob. Dunedin, February 8.