PROHIBITION.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 133, 4 December 1895, Page 2

PROHIBITION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAB. Sib,— My Prohibitionist friends have a passion for calling things by wrong names. Hence Prohibition, which is the very opposite of temperate, is misnamed by them the temperance movement. A reference to their lexicons would show - them that the name is a misnomer when so used. Mr Cocker repeats this misuse of terms wheft be talks of charity in connection with Sir Robert Stout, whose name, I woald remind my friend, was first intro* dueod by himself into this controversy. Is Mr Cocker so utterly destitute of -, Scriptural knowledge as to seek to cover by the word " charity " an act of gross disobedience to his Lord and Master ? - Has he not read that "to obey is better than to sacrifice, and to barken than the v fat of rams," and that "rebellion is as ' - - the sin of witchcraft, and stubborness is as iniquity and idolatry?" Does he not know that it wa*s the inspired Apostle, not me, who asked the latitudinarian- - Corinthian of " What concord hath Christ * ' with Belial, or what part hath he that • believeth with an infidel ?" What right . has Mr Cocker and his Christian friends to insnlt the majesty of God, and wound the consciences of thousands of the true* hearted followers of Jesus by giving the right band of fellowship, as well as the leadership of their pet scheme, to one who is the avowed enemy of our Saviour, . under the false, yet specious, pretext of , Charity ? Has it ever occurred to my x friend that Jesus was called by the Pharsees and Sadducees of His day the * Friend of Publicans and sinners. It is ' true that the publicans of the period were not liquor vendors, but they* were a despised and hated class, no doubt chiefly through the agitations of the above-named sects, who, though so care- , > f ul in carrying out their own fads and fancies were notoriously careless of God's commands. With this class feeling Jeses had no sympathy whatever. On the contrary, He more than^oncejcqm v , pared favorably the despised Publicans with the self-righteous Pharisees. I must say that the language and bearing of the. Prohibitionist toward the the liquor publican is not creditable to them 'as , professing Christians, being , altogether unlike the spirit and language, of their Lord and Master. , ■, % " Which of the two is the greater evil and which, of the twain is the biggest dinner— the man who openly advocates an infidelity — who teaches that the God of Scripture is a myth and that the fall, redemption, resurrection and the bless* ings of the future state contingent on the acceptance of the saving work of the Cross are fables, or the man who vends Alcoholic drinks subject to police con- '- trol ? My friends, like the Pharisee of / old, while straining at a gnat will with* > out hesitation swallow a camel. Has Mr Cocker and those acting with him forgotten the awful results of the teachings of that so-called philosophy, of which Voltaire d'Alembert and Diderot . were the chief exponents, and which - bore the bitter fruit of national apos- ~ tasy and wholesale slaughter. These men, however, in justice belt Said, did not for a moment anticipate such fear-, ful results to their labors, bat they sowed broadcast the seeds of infidelity,^ and this was, the fruit thereof. Sir,. Robert Stout privately may^ be, and no doubt is, the possessor of some good natural qualities, but it cannot be dembd , that he has used both his means i^d abilities in attempts to overthrow' theChristian faith, and the awful results - will be seen on the Great Assize Day. , '. I tell Mr Cocker that their alliance with the man who denies the God of the . _ Scripture and the Christ of Revelation cannot be covered by the term chanty. To my mind (and without desiring to offend more' than faithfulness demands) - it is a surrender of Christian principles in a bad cause, asdi the word treason > to the Lord mpze nearly expressorth* nature of the compafcfc between "Sir Robert Stout and my "friends the Chris- , tian Liquor Prohibitionists. , 'n I am, &c., * - J. B. Boots. -1' ',