GOOD TEMPLARS’ SOIREE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 209, 30 September 1874, Page 2

GOOD TEMPLARS’ SOIREE.

On Friday last the good people of Gisborne were pleasingly surprised at the number of invitations that were being sent to them by members of the Turanganui Lodge of Good Templars, to attend au impromptuentertainment, tobegivenon that evening iu the Music Hall. We are informed that it was not, at first, contemplated to make the invitations general, for fear that expectation might not be realized; but it was held to be almost unavoidable, and the consequence was a very large and enthusiastic response. The Music Hall was filled; aud the appreciation of the entertained was made known by successive plaudits which, under the circumstances, must have been gratifying to the entertainers. A very pleasing and varied programme was compiled for the occasion, consisting of songs, recitations, readings, &c., all of which caused pleasure and. amusement.

Preceding Mr. Boot’s address, a Good Templars’ hymn was sung, after which the reverend gentleman exhorted his hearers at some length on the subject of intemperance, in general, and the principles which the order professed in particular. He contended with great warmth aud earnestness that the aim and object of societies like that of the Good Templars — viz., the decreasing of the vice of drunkenness caused by an indiscriminate use of intoxicating drinks — ought to enlist the support and active cooperation of all right-thinking persons. They were not so blind to their own shortcomings as to say that the system upon which they worked was a perfect one ; but it could hardly be denied that it was the best known method of sweeping from the earth that curse of intemperance, from the effects of which so many innocent people—whole families in fact — fell victims. This principle, at any rate they were prepared to defend; and until it could be shown that they were in error the good work would be fearlessly, and hopefully carried on in the way which they thought best calculated to promote the cause, and to secure the end they had in view. The reverend speaker also gave it as his opinion that it was the duty of every Christian man and woman to abstain from the use of intoxicating drink, even admitting that the consequences, immediate, or remote, may not be ruinous to themselves ; he acknowledged a relative duty incumbent upon all to set an example to others less firm of purpose, and concluded an eloquent peroration by a forcible appeal to all present who were desirous of joining the lodge to send in their names during the evening. The Bev. Mr. Russell, also, after the interval, addressed the assemblage on the subject for which they had met, and said he looked upon the temperance movement as upon a large tree whose branches, increasing in number and in strength, would ultimately form one of the most powerful in the Colony. The second part of the programme was brought to a close by a nigger impersonation, entiiled “The Ghost in the Pawnshop,” which added much to the hilarity of the evening. This first effort of the Good Templars must be pronounced a success, and we hope to enjoy many more sociable evenings like that -which we now chronicle with so much pleasure, as we are firm in the belief that the more persons forming a community are brought indiscriminately together, the more effectually will their naturally gregarious habits tend to lessen the gap which the false notions of exclusiveness tend vastly to make. The proceeds of the entertainment are to be sent to the aid of the family of the late Mr. Gribble, killed some time since in Auckland, while at work helping to discharge the .Clematis.