PROHIBITION AND PERSECUTION.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 95, 18 October 1895, Page 2

PROHIBITION AND PERSECUTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THK STAE. SIR, —Perhaps never m the world's !ii i .tv hn-* ili rro lm.^n such a bewildering ;m n v c! fads and fancies placed before the < l«c ■ i.-f of any country as are now Dreeen ■ .1 'o the gaze of the New Zealanders. The last, and perhaps the most dangerous, is the Prohibition fad. No doubt the many advocates of this last phase of the teetotal question are perfectly sincere in their efforts to bring about this so-called reform, but sincerity does not necessarily contribute truth and righteousness. Who can doubt the sincerity of the preachers of the Koran when they graciously offered " Local Option" in religious matters (which included liquor prohibition) in the somewhat unattractive shape of the Tribute —the Koran or the Sword—to those people who were unfortunate enough to fall into their power. But, however earnest we may deem the Moslems m seeking to carry out their principles, we cannot for a moment conceive them to bo right. Nay, we have no hesitation in pronouncing them to be altogether wrong. So with our friends the Christian Liquor Prohibitionists, who have not only passed the bonnds of common sense, but are now treuching on religious liberty, and this, too, while professing to be the exponents of a religious system resting entirely on a grace foundation. Nowhere in the Book in which that religion is taught do I read that we are to compel people by legal process, involving tremendous penalties, to become total abstainers. On the contrary, the teaching the/em is clearly and unrnistakeably in favor of temperance as an act of grace, and not total abstinence as a legal measure. Saul of Tarsus, one of the most active religious Prohibitionists und,er this Dispensation of Grace, possessed a zeal second to none of the present advocates of liquor Prohibition. Aided by the civil power, his zeal took the form of a violent persecution against those who conscientiously differed from him, which resulted in filling the prisons of Judea with the unfortunate victims of his misguided ardour. So with our modern Sauls, who are invoking the aid of the civil power to compel the intemperate and the temperate to abstain, thus punishing the innocent with the guilty by making it a crime to do that which the Scripture teaches is right. What practical difference is there between the course pursued* by Saul, the persecutor, and our friends, the inoderu liquor Prohibitionists ? None, save in degree. Both would compel under severe paius and penalties an unqualified submission to their view of things. Both start with the same false notion that it is for man's good and God's glory to punish the body for the sake of the soul—even to fines and imprisonment. But Saul the Jew, when better informed as Paul the Christian bitterly regretted his past persecuting career. And, sir, I have no hesitation is saying that our Christian Liquor Prohibitionist could not do better than follow the example of the converted Jew and throw aside the carnal weapon of a persecuting enactment obtained by a majority vote, and as Christian preachers and teachers use " the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." The downward course of the teetotal movement would point a moral, if not adorn a tale. Forty or fifty years ago they started the movement on a temperance basis, i.e., moderate drinking with moral suasion as the weapon to accomplish that object. Finding their efforts fail they had recourse to total abstinence, still urging moral suasion as the motive power. Had they stopped there no reasonable person, would, or could, have complained, and some real good might have resulted therefrom. At any rate none would have had cause for complaint, seeing that abstinence, so sought, was purely optional. But, sir, the zealot spirit grew apace until the latest development is a fierce intolerance which can only be satisfied by monstrous fines and imprisonments. In short, the demon of political and religious intolerance has appeared on our political and religious platforms, conjured up by those whose teachings should have been of grace. Our friends talk as if compulsory abstinence forced on the people by dire penalties, were the panacea for all evils, political, social, and religious. They forget that total abstinence has been on trial for ages among millions of people, embracing many races and nations, without producing any of the marked results claimed for it by our enthusiastic friends. Surely they will not place the Turk very high in the scale of nations either politically, morally, or religiously. Yet they should take a very advanced positioti among the people of the earth if compulsory abstinence were to confer the numerous blessings and benefits claimed for it by its inexperienced yet warm advocates, the Christian Prohibitionists. Our friends possess a zeal similar to Saul the persecutor, and are equally dangerous. May they, before too late, sco their error, and, like him, confess with, deep humility their sorrow for their unchristianlike attempts to persecute harmless persons into accepting their beliefs, and may they follow his example when converted and preach Christ as the Saviour from all sin as well as the Saviour of sinners. Drunkenness is a great and grievous sin. Christ is the only effectual remedy. It mattered not whether the sinner was a heterodox Samaritan or a licentious pagan Corinthian, Christ was the power of God unto salvation to both. Go and preach likewise. I am, etc., J. B. Roots.