Correspondence

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 279, 1 June 1897, Page 2

Correspondence

ON PROHIBITION. (TO THE EDITOB.) Sib,— l regret that our friends the Christian Liquor Prohibitionists still cleave to this heretical dogma of total liquor prohibition. Surely if their fan atieism in this particular had not closed up every avenue of mental receptivity they must have been convinced ere this of the wickedness and injustice of still pursuing their erring course, lam myself as anxious for true temperance based on righteous principles as any of my friends. Myself a total abstainer of many years standing and an abhorer of drunkenness I should hail real reform based on Christian principles with delight. A feeling of righteous indignation mingled with pity took possession of my soul as I gazed on the platform the other night and beheld thereon three representatives of religions bodies, professed expositors of the Christian creed, propounding dogmas diametrically opposed to the teaching of the Founder of their religion. Sir, I contend that my friends bave mistaken their vocation, their addresses proving them to be entirely ignorant of the A B C of the religion they profes3 v to hold and teach. In fact they are precisely in the predicament of the religious leaders of the Jewish faith whom the Saviour in the days of His flesh so strongly denounced. The Jewish teachers were thoroughly confused with the teaching of their commentators nntil the law of God, in its purity and righteousness, bad become to them quite a secondary matter. So with my friends. They have departed from the simplicity and purity of the gospel teaching and have become entangled and corrupted by the teaching of certain alleged American reformers who had themselves lost sight entirely of Bible precepts and practice with the awful result that, like the Pbarasees of old, they deliberately ignored the Divine commands. That Prohibition has proved a failure wberever tried is abundantly proven by testimony so credible that none but Prohibitionists of the most solid type will deny. Still I was not sui prised at tbe statement made by Mr Taylor, M.H.R., that it bad been a great success, knowing, as I do, tbe somewhat unreliable assertions common to the lecturers of the movement. Under tbe circumstances I bold that their attempt to ngain force on us a worn out and rejected American notion, is a positive insult to our common sense, especially when the measure sought to bo imposed bis been twice rejected by large majorities Tbe President of the Feilding branch of the League and its leading members presented themselves for representation with the result that they were wof ully beaten. Why will not my friends learn the lesson taught by their rejection ? Is the peace of the town and district to be again disturbed by their folly? Are households to be again divided simply to gratify tbe wbim of a few mistaken persons who, ignorant of ibe real remedy, are experimentalising with a nostrum already proved to be a failure. In conclusion I do bops that good counsel will prevail with my friends, and that they will once and for ever renounce the intoxicating enp of total liquor prohibition, which has already robbed them of that common sense and common justice so dear to every right thinking man, and filled their hearts and mouths with bitterness against those who venture to differ with them in their teachings. I am, &c, J. B. Roots,