THE HON. S. D. HASTINGS IN LYTTELTON.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 219, 20 February 1875, Page 3

THE HON. S. D. HASTINGS IN LYTTELTON.

A meeting was held on Thursday evening'in the Foresters’ Hall for the purpose of hearing an address on Good Templarism from Mr Hastings, the Past Right Worthy Grand Templar of the World, who has recently arrived in this province on a tour of inspection, and for the re-institution of a Good Templar Lodge in Lyttelton. The chair was taken by Mr S. P. Andrews, W.C.T., who, in the course of his opening remarks, regretted the smallness of the attendance, which was owing, he believed, to another meeting being held on the Sunday question. He referred to the flourishing state of the Order in Christchurch, which now numbered 1000 members. A lodge had been instftuted in Lyttelton by Mr Mackune, but it was intended to commence de novo, and not endeavor to resuscitate the former lodge. On introducing the lecturer to the audience, he alluded to the number of influential American statesmen who were members of the Order, and concluded by briefly sketching out the objects and manner of working of Good Templarism. Mr Hastings said the chairman had said that out of one thousand Good Templars in Christchurch, not one had had occasion to leave the body for conscientious reasons. He could go farther than that, and from his long and varied experience, could confidently assert that of all the thousands, he might almost say millions, with whom he had come in contact the same might be said. He pointed out that Good Templars had a work to do which no other organization, either educational or religious, could undertake. He explained the provisions and working of the prohibitory laws in the various states of America. Hardly one had not at one time or other passed a local liquor law. In Massachusetts the liquor interest had last autumn rallied, and caused the repeal of the local Act, but he would stake his reputation as a prophet that it would be on the statute book again before the expiration of another year. Although they were emphatically a non-political body in his native country, as the chairman had said, they numbered amongst them the second officer of the Executive —Henry Wilson, Vice-Presi-dent of the United States, the Governors of Maine, Rhode Island, and Kentucky. Their object, which in spite of the sneers and opposition they had met with, he believed to be a perfectly leasable one, was the entire abolition of the liquor traffic. He was sure that great evil which brought so many other evils in its train was felt in this beautiful country of New Zealand as it was elsewhere. He then related several facts which had come to his knowledge in the North Island, showing the benefits of Good Templary, and earnestly pressed on those present to take their part in the great work of saving the’ fallen, and of preserving the rising generation from the direful effects of drink, by setting on foot and energetically working a lodge in Lyttelton. At the close of Mr Hastings’s address, the needful application for a charter was signed by twenty-two persons, when the preliminaries for instituting the lodge were duly gone into.