AUCKLAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume V, Issue 225, 10 February 1865, Page 1 (Supplement)

AUCKLAND.

LECTURE ON TEMPERANCE. Prom our contemporary the New Zealander, wa give the following abridgment of a .highly important and interesting Jeeture by the Rev. W. Taylor. His audience consisted, principally, of young persons, for .whose especial benefit this lecture was delivered, Mr;'Taylor commenced his lecture by saying that he was here to look for a moment, and bring those present to look in the face of,, the greatest evil that could afflict any country, and to seek its remedy; Every one present, young and old, could recall to their minds instances oCthis great evil. One instance would illustrate millions. A young man of Indiana commenced life well and happily and all went on prosperously, but by the effects of association he.took to drinking, ruined himself and family, and became an utter wreck of what he had been. Finally crazed with rum, trembling with delirium tremens, he was seen one day, with reason gone, but love for his, wife still remaining, holding a board over her head to protect her from the house, that in his imagination was about to fall upon her. That night he wandered away, and next morning was feund, having eaten off several of his own fingers. He died that same day. In Great Britain there are 600,000 drunkards, most of them with families. This 600,000 would involve the ruin and degradation of perhaps three millions of those immediately connected with them. But if we went beyond this, he would ask who had not suffered from this' intemperance in his friends and acquaintances. There might possibly be some, but lie doubted it, He.had sat at the table of a gentleman in Sligo, who asked him to drink, and was astonished that he did not. Mr. Taylor asked him if he could say that no kinsman of his had been involved in this drunkenness, and was answered that he could not say so, for one friend of his had fallen frotn a steady course, and died before he was forty years of age, by drunkenness ; his own father had fallen through drunkenness. Mr. Taylor said to him, “ And yet you have the very rope that hung your own father, and are adjusting it to catch your friends, but you won’t catch me.” That man was so struck with this argument that he signed the temperance pledge that week. This is an; evil that we ought to look in the face, and find a remedy. What can be done? , First, individually, by stopping the demand for the article ; and, secondly, by stopping the supplies. In his country, years ago, they tried moderate temperance by abstaining from alcoholic drink only.. For a time it seemed to work, but by-and-bye they found that the temperance people got drunk on wine and cider. The poor man would say, “You allow wine, but 1 am a poor man and cannot buy it; -I-will put.a little whisky in water, and shall not have as much alcohol in my drink as you have in your wine.” They tried a variety of ways to make this plan go, but it would not, and they had to fall back upon the teetotal principles, excluding all intoxicating drinks except as medicine, and of course the wine necessary for the sacrament. In the total abstinence principle, they give up for the general good what they might call a right. If wine was used as it was eighteen hundred years ago, an occasional use of the juice of the grape might be made. It was so in the clays of the Saviour. But it was in moderate supply. Among the Greeks it was not lawful to use it until a man was thirty years of age, and then it should be diluted to the extent of two-thirds water. Hence it was that Timothy had difficulty even to take a little wine as medicine, for he was descended from Greek parents. Now we have fifty or sixty kinds of wine, and it is most doubtful if there be any. grape juice in it. There are not grapes enough in : the whole world to furnish it. This is the thin edge, “ a little wine for your stomach!s sake,” that leads,to the awful results of which he had spoken. Some think.they cannot get along without a little, but he had got on better than those who tippled, and so could others. Those who tipple-cannot-come up to time, cannot be depended on. He (Mr. Taylor) was always ready for his work. He -should like to see the man that could say that he was not. Plenty of fresh air and exercise would stimulate them better than drink, While a man tipples there is no certainty, that he will not. become a drunkard. Not one of the 600,000 in Great Britain had been born a drunkard'; they had been •. innocent little babies, but they had commenced drinking on the moderate principle, and so went i on from bad to worse.- He spoke of this because the statistics of Great Britain could be relied upon. King Alcohol was like the Irishman who pitched the Englishman into the Thames, having made a bet that he would throw him across, which the Englishman foolishly accepted. The Englishman - came dripping and cold, and asked him what he meant, but Paddy only told him that he would try again., (Laughter.) So it was with king Alcohol, he was ■ sure to throw them into the river of; drunkenness, whatever his protestation that he ■would land them- safely on the other, side might be. There was a gentleman who went to, America, and laid out a beautiful park with a lake in it. He one day saw a lot of- tadpoles in the lake and also a lot of toads, but mistaking the tadpoles for fishes, he called out to his mentokill the toads . bat not the little fishes, and, so they killed the toads; but another crop of them grew up. So they might kill away amongst the old drinkers. without any effect, but it would be better to attack the moderate drinkers. - As regards the stopping of the supply, he would (Say v that the supply stimulates the demand as well as the reverse, and . unless a pressure could be brought. upon the Supplies,.drinking,.could not be.stopped. Some thought legislation was the cure, but legislation . unsustaiued was of no use. - The public m ust be educated $ this was, remedy. When a tradesman ; comes, in apd makes, his five .thousand, pounds,, people are glad,, because he leaves an eqivalent for tlie money, be makes. So. with professional men, mechanics, and laborers. But the publican made .his money, and what spqiety .receive for all thia money?; Go to the habitations of, woe j;. hear the midnight scream ; ,gp to . too.graveyard, see the widowed mother and orphan children,i and -the Inmates ofgaols, u an(Lthese.. the, equivalents*.. Compare'-his. business, and see what was the result. The*car^ier ; who ■

took passengers.was responsible for-their safety, and so should.it be with the publican. They are really the destroyers of human life 'as well as property.. They say they do not mean it, but they do it -nevertheless. A friend of his was travelling.j with a ...sfrqnger. near Boston ; the stranger looked sad, and the friend asked him what grieved him. He. said he had had a kind fathpr and mother and happy home, when, a stranger opened whathe called a grocery shop in the town, and his father picked up his acquaint ance and took to drink.. One day going to (own, his mother begged of him not to let his father drink that day, and he promised to prevent him if possible. He succeeded until they came to this shop, and then his father went in and drank until past midnight, when they started on their way home again, and the father in his drunkenness fell off the wagon and was killedi He took the body home to his mother, who uttered one scream and dropped dead in. her. agony. That man was the murderer of his father and. his mother, and there was no appeal. All .that could be done now to remedy this evil .was to bring public opipipn to bear upon it,'and ultimately a law prohibitory might be obtained. He wished every-success to the Band of Hope in Auckland, and trusted that they might go on increasing in their members, and prospering in every way.