TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1987, 7 July 1880, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

["Edited by C. M. 0 3 Local Option in Scotland. —The Earl of Zetland, who has the right at Orangemouth to close all plaoes for the sale of intoxicants in that port, has left the decision as to the liquor traffic to the inhabitants themselves. Six of the Police Commissioners, as representatives of the ratepayers, forwarded a memorial requesting his Lardship to allow matters to remain as they are. A few days before, however, a memorial was forwarded to Lard Zetland by the Chief Magistrate, signed by 1371 individuals of all classes, from sixteen years of ago and upwards, including all the clergymen in the town, and at least fourfifths of the householders and parents. These memorialists stated that in their opinion the proposed prohibition would “ tend greatly to advance the welfare of the town, and add very much to the comfort and peace of the community.” Lord Zetland has decided to be guided by the expressed wish of the bulk of the inhabitants, and in about a fortnight the public will have an opportunity of watch - ing the operation of a Local Option Prohibitory Law in a British seaport. His Lordship is to be highly commended for his excellent decision.

Phofessoe Rolleston. —It may be of some interest to tho people of Canterbury to know that Professor Rolleston (Oxford) one of tho foremost total abstinence advocates in England, and a vice-president of the United Kingdom Alhance, is a brother of tho Hon. Wm. Eolleaton, member for the Avon district. Mb O. H. Bpijbgbon on tub Mabriaqe at Cana. —ln a sermon delivered recently at Bayswater, Mr Spurgeon, in referring to the above subject, proceeded to remark: —“Wo have to ask ourselves what he would have done had he lived in our circumstances ? If there had been, as there was in the East, a general drinking of wine upon which a man could scarcely be intoxicated, except he went to an utter extravagance, I can very well understand that not only Christ, but those about Him, might have continued to drink that wine. But if He had lived in a nation which seems to be rotten with drunkenness, if He had seen on all hands the noblest characters ruined by this accursed drink, if He had seen the mass of our population besotted by it, if He bad known it was one of the chief bonds that Satan now casts about men’s minds to hold them in the slavery of ignorance and sin, I should then ask myself What would Christ have done under those circumstances ? And I think I need not tell you what He would do. Whatsoever things are pure and honest, and lead towards temperance and sobriety, I am sure Jesus Christ would have upheld, and let all those who call Him Master do the same.”

Is rr eight for a minister of religion to preach against the sin of drunkenness, while he continues to use the drink which alone produces it ?

Education cannot Satb a Uak ibom being A Deunkasd. —“ I have seen a Minister at whose feet I have sat in bygone days, dragged down by strong drink, till with a blackened face he has stood np in tho drink shop, and there muttered out his sermons amidst the laughter and mockery of those by whom he was surrounded.” —Rev. Charles Garrett.

One Result op Intoxicating Sacbambntal Wine.—At Mr Moody’s meetings in Philadelphia there was among the converts a man of good family, brilliant hopes, and excellent prospects, who had been degraded by drink, and was a confirmed drunkard. B e threw himself upon Christ for deliverance, and his prayer was heard. He rigidly abstained, and for a time all went well. His health and strength returned, friends gathered about him, and comfort and peace fil'ed his heart and home. For twenty months he was enabled to resist temptation. At the end of this time he joined a church, and went for the first time to ths Communion table. There alcohol was passed to him. Tremblingly he raised it and drank. That taste filled him with an unquenchable thirst. He went straight to a saloon and drank himself drunk, and continned to debauch for days. The wife, who had borne so much suffering before, was, by this great reaction from her new hope, oast down till despair filled her soul. Bereft of reason, she went out with her babe toward the river, and took the fatal plnnge. She was found with her dead child clasped to her bosom, her hair tangled in the driftwood, and her face turned appealingly to heaven. If this were the only known instance of such sad results from the use of fermented wine in the sacrament, it should he sufficient to make the whole Church avoid by any means that are available the risk of a second.

A Hospital's most feeqitent Cuatomebs. —The annual report of St. George’s Hospital, London, gives an interesting table of the daily consumption of to which patients, previous to their admission, had been accustomed. The largest consumer of spirits, aged 30, took twenty to thirty glasses of gin daily ; and the largest consumer of beer, aged 35, never exceeded twenty-six pints a day. It is also stated that only one total abstainer could be found amongst the patients. —a most powerful argument in favor of abstinence.

The “ Working-man ” Oar. —“lget sick of people using the ivorhing-man argument. I consider the working-man to be the Uriah the Hittite of politics. If there is any abomination to be done, any political crime to be committed, the working-man is always put in the forefront of the battle ; but when the contest has gone on a little while the poor man is slain in the political affray, and one of the factions marches to victory over his prostrate corpse. If any one is afraid that the working-man is going to be so much injured by my Bill, all I can say is, let the working man alone to vote upon the case.” — Sir Wilfrid Lawson.

The Faildbk of Fbeb-Tbadb in Wine and Beee. —Statesmen at one time said, “We will east out one devil by another, prevent the people drinking spirits by making them drink beer,” and so they set up a lot of houses where there was free-trade in beer. This was done, and what was the consequence? A few months after the Beer Bill of 1830 was passed, and the beerhouses were established, Sydney Smith wrote “ The Beer Bill has began to work ; everybody that is not singing is sprawling j the sovereign people is in a beastly state.” That was the effect of freetrade in beer. Time went on. _ Thirty years after that Mr Gladstone was in power, and he brought in a Bill intended to make people sober by Act of Parliament. He said, “If I can get the people to drink cheap wine, and have comparative free-trade in wine, I shall wean them not only from the spirits which we tried to wean them from with the Beer Act, but I shall wean them from the excessive use of beer also j” and the consequence was they now drank wine, beer, and spirits —and the last state of the country is a good deal worse than the first. A Reward that is Likely to Remain Unclaimed. —“ I read the other day that some one had offered a prize of £IOO to anybody who would tell him of a public-house or a beershop which was set up next door to a magistrate, and for which the magistrate voted on the licensing day. I think some one ought to look sharp, and get that £loo.”—Sir Wilfrid Lawson.

Only Once Deukk. —“ Never shall I forget the end of one with whom I was well acquainted, a member of the Church of which I was pastor, at Perth, _ He was a moderate drinker, and at the solicitation of a traveller, with whom he did business, ho one evening repaired with him to his hotel; for the first time in his life he became intoxicated, wont home, and, in the heat of passion, excited by liquor, inflicted on his wife injuries of which she afterwards died. In due time he was tried, the evidence was conclusive, and sentence of death was pronounced. Never will the scone bo effaced from my memory. I attended him in his oel), and was the last to leave him on the scaffold; and then, within sight of the church of which ho had boon forty years a member, he was hung like a dog. 1 ' —Eev. Jabez Burns, D.D.

A “Vested Iktbeest” to do Weonq.— “ I deny that in any free country any man has a vested right to do wrong. Freedom rightly understood Is universal license to do good. If my Bill ia an interference with the vested rights of the drink-sellers, so is every other Bill brought into the House of Commons, whether by the Government or by private members. Every Bill which tends to increase the temperance and diminish the intemperance of this country must reduce the profits of the publicans. All we can say, therefore, to the publicans is—‘Stop yonr trade, gentlemen, and go into some honest calling; if you won’t, then wo would rather have to keep you than the millions of paupers that you have Baade," —Sir Wilfrid Lawson,