TE AROHA BAND OF HOPE.

Te Aroha News, Volume 1, Issue 47, 26 April 1884, Page 2

TE AROHA BAND OF HOPE.

The usual fortnightly meeting of the above was held on Tuesday evening last in the Wesleyan Church. Mr Hott in the chair, Mr W. Ashby presiding at the harmonium. There was a very large attendance, the building being filled in every part. A long and interesting programme was satisfactorily gone through, consisting of readings, recitations, addresses, and sonsfs, interspersed with selections from Hoyle's temperance songs and solos. Mr Stephenson, an aged worker in the temperance cause, addressed the meeting, and gave some most interesting particulars of what he had seen in years gone by in the course of his missionary work, not only in N.Z., but also in Tasmania and Australia. Fifty years ago, he said it would have been impossible to get sucii an audience together in the interests of the temperance cause as he had before him to-night. He referred to the first start of the temperance work in this colony, a cloud only the size of a man's hand as it were m tho sky ; but now it was spreading all along the line, from township to township, and city to ci ty ; there was hope for New Zealand yet. Rev. Mr Whytock, Baptist minister, Auckland, addressed the meeting, and said it was a great blessing for men to be sober. He referred with feeling to the terrible scenes he had witnessed, and the it in and degradation brought about in once .lappy homes and families solely through I rink ; many of those who fell so low by its instrumentality having begun life as very moderate drinkers. He strongly urged upon all the advisability of taking the pledge without delay, if they had not already done so, both for their own sake and as a Christian duty for the sake of those around them. Mr Lovell i?ave an encouraging report of the progress of the Band of Hope in the district he represented. Rev. T. J. Wil s .-spoke at some length, and gave interest tng particulars of the success of t! c oause in his last circuit, Northc n Wairoa. He urged upon members of the committee the necessity of faitnfuii> ■ Mending to their duties, and concluded ■y reading a circular issued by the con>•nittee of the Auckland Ladies' Gospel Temperance Mission and Blue Ribbon Army, in connection with which is a petition for signature by all females over -'I years of a#e. The petition is to the •ffect, that women nnd children, being nore geneially effected by the operations >f the Licensing L-ivvs than men are, a jocal Option Extension Act should be , ranted, which shall embody the power o vote by all wonun of th s colony ok* aature age.