Untitled

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1487, 22 November 1872, Page 3

fund, £ll4. 6s 4d-, (Ftraeral Fund, £2O 16s fld; Contingent Eand, £24 4s 8d; making a total of £159 7s 6d. To this has to be added a sum of £45 12s sd, -still due to this Tent by the Hew Zealand District in Auckland since we. -seceded from that district in the month of March last—making a grand total to theccredit of this Tent of £20418s lid. Reading: Mr Lee.—" The great Beef •Contract." Song: Mr Bell.—" The Anchor'* weighed." (Being vociferously encored, this gentleman again came forward, substituting *« Hapj>y be ihy Dreams.") The Rev. H- B. Redstone, after remarking pleasantly upon the disadvantage at which he was placed in coming forward immediately after the audience had listened to the sweet and melodious notes of a Bell—so different from anything they could expect from a stone —expressed his entire sympathy with the objects of the society. The present meeting had assembled partly j for the purpose of enjoyment, and partly for profit —and with these objects he thoroughly sympathized. It was quite right for people to enjoy themselves—God intended that they .should do so, and had given them a capacity for enjoyment and the means of gratifying it. Since the meeting had commenced they had been priviled to gaze on beauty and to listen to sweet strains of melody, and he hoped that nothing in hi* address this evening would in any waj tend to mar the pleasure of those pi eseut. The enjoyment provided thi.s evening was of a rational kind, and there would he no danger of those before him wandering homeward in a zigzagjand unsteady manner, as not nufrequently happened to people after an evening's enjoyment of a different kind. The society who had arranged this meeting were engaged in a warfare against an insidious foe —a foe whose power had no doubt been felt in times past by some of those present to-night. They had been fascinated as with the sparkling eye of the set pent, and had advanced further and further into the charmed circle until perhaps they had taken alarm at the cry of some \ictim deeper imolved in the toils of the ;)eacllv enemy, or had heard the solemn ( warning s ** This hou>e is the way to Jiell, leading to Hie chambers of Death." The foe against which the Reehabite Order was leagued was a foe to commerce. From a purely commercial point of view, the diversion of the earnings of the people into unprofitable and mischievous channels was a great evil. During the year 1871, £112,000,000 had been spent in intoxicating liquor in the United Kingdom, and the capital invested in the manl'ucture and traffic had been estimated at £117,000,000 or more than in the. three staple industries of the Kingdom combined—the cotton wool, and iron trades. That intoxicating liquor was a foe physically considered, was self-evident. Sometimes people said they took it as medicine ; but who would prescribe or dunk medicine by quarts daily 1 What would a stranger, ignorant of our ways, say, if he were toid that all the conspicuous shops with lamp* in fiout, doing so lucrative a business in Napier, were medicine stores? He would say " If it is so unhealty a place as to require all this medicine, I shan't stay lieie." The drink waa a social foe. It sapped the foundations of social life; it separated husband and wife more effectually than the divotce court; and it led to innumerable evils and miseiies. (To illustiate this point Mr Redstone read a harrowing narration of the effects of drunkenness in one family, which was listened to with deep interest and attention ) In conclusion he hoped the society would continue to advance, imbued with the spirit of love, and crowned with the Divine blessing. (Applause.) Mr Mann here gave a very interesting recitation—a poem written shortly after the Battle of Sadowa—which was enthusiastically received. [TO BE CONCLUDED TO-JIOIIROW.I