PROHIBITION.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 96, 20 October 1896, Page 2

PROHIBITION.

TO THE EDITOB. Sib, — I have had your paper sent to me by someone with a marked article on Prohibition, which is an attack on bhose ministers who, like myself, feel it our duty as ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ to do all that lays in onr power to abolish the sale of intoxicants. We bave many serious charges laid against us, which it would take too much of your valuable space to answer in detail ; so I will only express my opinion on one or two points. We are charged with being organisers of mischief, &c. This is no new cry against those who endeavonr to banish what is wrong and bring in what is right. It was charged against Jesus and his apostles, and especially St. Panl — " These must have turned the world upside down"; "We have found this man a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition, and a ringleader of tne sect of Nazarenes " — against reformers in all ages ; but the point to prove is : Is the object right ? If so, they must at all costs establish it, come what may, or abdicate their place as men unworthy of the name of Jesus Christ. Again, we are charged with ignorance. Perhaps this may rather be the position of onr opponents. Our contention is that alcohol is a poison which can never be used as a beverage without eril results, and these results are very widespread, doing incalculable harm to thousands ; therefore it is the boundea duty of all to do all they can to stay its sale for the sake of all concerned — for the seller, who is ignorantly the cause of many deaths and much goffering ; for the sake ot the consumer, who is ignorant that he is taking a poison which must do him harm and often fatal injury, and the result of alcohol in the system is fearful in its effects on the off -spring of those using it. Ours is not the raving of wild tanatics — but the carrying out into practice the results of carefnl scientific investigation. There are now very few persons in the scientific world who have not come to full conclusion that alcohol is a poison and injurious to the human system, and it is immaterial whether it is contained in beer, wine, or spirits. The degree of injury may greatly vary, but that injury is done is undoubted, and some of the leading physicians have pronounced emphatically against the use of alcohol in any form, or at any time, and those hospitals where it is absolutely avoided have abundantly shown the value of the discontinuance of its use in any form of sickness. " As I looked at the hospital wards to-day, and saw that seven oat of ten owed their disease to alcohol, I could but lament that the teaching about the question was not more direct, more decisive, more home-thrusting, that even it had been."- Sir A. Clarke, M.D., F.R.C.P. " Every organ in the body is supplied with deficient noorishment, every tissue is deteriorated by the constant and regular use of alcohol, even in quantities far short of drunkenness." — Norman S. Kerr, M.D., F.L.S. " It is perfectly certain that there are multitudes at this moment who are injuring their constitutions, and shortening their lives, by taking alcohol daily, in an amount which they consider strictly moderate,"— J. J. Ridge, M.D. All questions of liberty, revenue, interference with others, and so on, are be* side the question, which is, is it right to license the sale of that which is a poison ; which has and which continues to work so much harm. I have little hesitation in stating that every man and woman must answer in the negative, or be responsible for the deaths, crime, and misery of those who are destroyed or injured by the use of intoxicating liquors, and whether as a layman or a minister I must do my utmost to save life and prevent crime and suffering, and so I think I have done right in joining the ranks ot those amongst whom are to be found— the Dean of Canterbury, Bishop Temple of London, Bishop of Exeter, Canon Wilberforce, Sir Wilfred Lawson, and many others of like position, and bo as a clergyman of the Church of England I am not ashamed of my position. I am, etc., Fred. H. Spencer. Wanganni, October 14th, 1896.