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PROHIBITION SERMON.

BY THE KEY. FRANK MCDONALD.' The Rev. Frank McDonald delivered a most eloquent and forceful sermon on the liquor question in the local Presbyterian Church. He said he spoke without undue emotion and was not an extremist on any question, ‘‘but I hope I am sane and logical in the judgments I form and the position I take.” He said in some cases the most extreme position is the truest moderation and sitting on i he fence sheer stupidity. It was so in the case of the use and >a]le of alcoholic liquors. He was in agreement with Josh Billings who wrote: “They say that brandy is good in its place, so it is —and hell is the place for it.” He had no quarrel with the people who selt'or trade in liquor. They may be quite honest folk deluded by custom or blinded by prejudice and there was no fault to find with them in mi far as they observed the laws of the land. His regret was that alcoholic liquors ought not to be sold because they are the cause of widespread inefficiency and endanger the souls and bodies of those who take them; because they put an unfair handicap upon the unborn generations, rob motherhood of its joys and childhood of its rights. Liquor was the chief cause of crimes and disease, of insanity and endangers the life of the State. The trade in alcoholics exists to-day as the result of vitiated and depraved appetites. Men drink it because they like it and men sell it because they find it profitable—“the jingle of the guinea heals the hurt that honour feels.” Some will say alcohol is a good creature of God. So it is but not as a beverage for human consumption. It will be the motor fuel of the future and will provide ctyeap power to facilitate transport. Alcohol used in the internal economy of man becomes the chief instrument of the devil. It is then not the “good creature of God,” but' the “vilest fiend of all.” The appetite for alcohol is an unnatural one —an acquired taste. Many a. man and woman enslaved by the appetite for alcohol has with good reson cursed those that bore them for the iiihreitance to which they have succeeded. He dealt with cases that had come under his personal knowledge, due to heredity. He quoted the testimony of leading medical scientists that alcohol is not a food of any value to the human body. Alcohol never helps a man to resist adverse conditions. It lessens his power of endurance of extreme heat and cold; it makes him prune to yield to infection and 10.-s able to withstand the evil effects of fevers and other acute diseases. It tends to shorten life and is the chief cause of crime, cruelty, vice, etc. Two great scientists had recently stated that after all tests had been made with all sugars, the sugar of milk was the, only sugar that would nor produce alcohol by fermentation and that the evils of all alcohol to the human family is so great that to save them from that peril God, in His wisdom, perilled the life of every child horn by the introduction of sugar of milk. This was not the statement, of a prohibition extremist but the calm, sane, mature judgment of science. In view of that stupendous fact, who dare talk about our natural right, liberty, freedom, etc., to indulge a natural appetite for alcoholic liquors"? He held, there was no such natural appetite. The first prohibitory law applied to the use of alcohol was formulated by the Creator a* expressed in the natural functions. of motherhood and written in the lieshey tablets ■ of the human heart. We hear of' moderate drinking—let us hear no more of such nonsense. Alcohol is indigestible. Its effects on the system are assimilation. The daily use of smali quantities of alcohol is a more deadly sin against the human body than an occasional outburst of druukeness. Your occasional drunkard recovers quiciity. Your moderate drinker is always more or less under the inlluenee. The money spent on liquor is a proved waste of wealth. It would be better to throw it into the river. He went on to say that New Zealand spent approximately ten millions annually m alcoholic beverages and we are no better off. The Government of this country says it has no money to increase widows pensions—it woud take a quarter of a million to make tneni adequate. He contended if we saved tbe ten millions we now waste in alcoholic beverages, there w ould be plenty of money to increase tlie widows pensions to an adequate standard. There is also Uie wastage of man power. “1 suppose,' 7 said Air AfcJJonatd, “it is a very conservative estimate to reckon tiiat o,UUU men are withdrawn permanently from productive labour because of tue trade and more Ilian o,ouu motners kail Liie sorrow and pain Last year to know mat Llieir lads or daughters were iieginmug me drunkard s niurcii. mat is wkere me army of lnellieieacy created by the trade linds constant recruitage. “lunik of this you parents ; xhe drunkards of tlie next generation are in your homes, me urink-besotted and enslaved of tlie future sleep in your cradles tonight.” Air McDonald went on to say that mere is alarming evidence taut women and girls are drinking more tnan formerly. That means, he said, that the streams of life are being polluted at their source, followed by an increase of infant mortality, barrenness and sterility,” an increase of those not as yet horn but as damned into this world.” We have had a war that has taxed the

utmost resources of our nation, he said, and we cannot afford to waste wealth and we cannot afford to waste our manhood —the most sing need of our world to-day. trade is robbing us of our power to meet this need, so the trade perils the State. That is a sober statement of a very important fact. The preacher dealt with the revenue question and showed that before the trade paid any revenue to the Government, it took it out of the pockets of the people and that it only paid back one quarter of what it, had taken from the people, the other three-quarters went into its own pockets. In the light of these indisputable facts, said the preacher, I appeal to you to meet the obligations of your Christian citizenship and deal with the trade in alcoholic beverages as it deserves “for the violence it has done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell therein.”

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19221128.2.13

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2511, 28 November 1922, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,116

PROHIBITION SERMON. Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2511, 28 November 1922, Page 2

PROHIBITION SERMON. Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2511, 28 November 1922, Page 2

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