WEEK-DAY RELIGION.

Evening Star, Issue 3851, 28 June 1875, Page 2

WEEK-DAY RELIGION.

The eighth of the series of lectures was delivered last evening by Dr 1 oseby on tho subject of intemperance. The rc-v. gentleman based his remarks on Prov. xxiii., 31, 32, and I. Cor., ix., 19, 22, 23. rLc said that m any series of discourses on the bearing of Christianity on common life it was , impossible to pass over the subject of intemperance. Among the factors that constituted, and the influences that left their mark upon the Me and diameter of the community, it would be difficult to find one more important and influential than strong drink. If Christianity had, therefore, anything to say about our weekday life, it surely had something to say concerning this. Here the rev, gentleman deprecated anv dictation or judgment of others. He was the keeper of no man Y s conscience but his own. He had no doubt—indeed, he knew—there were men as good as and better than himself, whose views on the subject and whose practice were at variance with his own. Still, ho thought it a wise thing, a needful thing, and, now that the subject had come in his way, a duty, to assist the judgment of others by conshlcrations which had influenced bis own. The lecturer then dwelt upon various aspects of the great evil of intemperance, stating that it had been ascertained that 60,000 persons in the United Kingdom annually passed to a drunkard’s grave, and that he observed, from a recent article in ‘Scribner’s Monthly,’ a high class American magazine, that au equal number fell annually in the * United States from the s.me cause. \l£hat an army must that be which could afford to lose 60,000 every year, and yet show no break in its ranks! hj or, 10, they came; youths and maidens, boys and girls, children—with the bright sunshine of God's and the soft features of a diviue_beauty upon them—to fill the thinning ranks, and keep up tho ghastly succession of the victims of intemperance I The personal, domestic, and social evus of intemperance were then reviewed, the lecturer citing testimonies to show how large a proportion of the pauperism, crime, lunacy, and immorality off the community wa« attributable to that cause. Perhaps, however (he remarked) the most disheartening aspect of the picture was the grievous obstacle which intemperance mternosed to the progress of the human race. Ihe damning character of this vice was that it fattened itself upon material prosperity. Better (the condition of the laborer, and be hastened to fling the increase of his wages into the publican’s lap; enrich the estate of the well-to-do, and habits of luxury and indolence enervated tho character and brought ruin upon the home. _ No sooner did signs appear of social prosperity in any community than this vile spirit discovered itself, turning the very blessings of an improved material condition into a moral curse, working death in men and in society by that which was good. The lecturer then asked —what jhad Christi&nty to say to all this ? He admitted there arose at this point, and needed to be fairly recognised, the law of liberty. Let every man be fully persuaded in bis own mind; but let them look at the principle laid down by the Apostle in the text. The principle was a very broad one. By the aid of an illustrative contrast between the great (and doubtless true) principle of physical science, ihe survival of the fittest, or the sacrifice of the weak for the benefit of the strong, and the great principle of the gospel (the sign of which was. the Cross)—the self-sacrifice of the strong for the benefit and salvation of the weak. The lecturer expounded the latter principle, and then brought it to bear upon the matter in hand. The drunkard had no choice but to abstain. Would they suffer him to fight out that terrible battle unsupported and alone? If no one abstained but those who most, then those who must would not abstain at all. Would they then acquiesce in his perdition by refusing to help him ? Or would they become themselves as weak unto the. weak that they might gain the weak —that they feight by all means save some ? Certainly, of they did so, they might take comfoit in the remembrance of One who Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses; who pleased not Himself, but who, that He tnightjsave some, gave to the world its greatest of self-sacrifice. The next lecture of the series will be on “ Having and Selling.”