THE REV. 11. S. DAVIES ON POPULAR EVILS. Auckland, Jan. 27.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 340, 6 February 1889, Page 6

THE REV. 11. S. DAVIES ON POPULAR EVILS. Auckland, Jan. 27.

The Rev. H. S. Davies, preaching afc Takapuna on Sunday, declaimed earnestly against the besetting social sins of the day. In the course of his remarks he said :—: — " Nor are they of one class only. They may hold high places, may sit in seats of authority, may be chiefs and leaders in society, may rule in the councils ot their fellows, or even of the nation, and men may bow down before them. And for all this they may be in soul slaves and bondsmen of the devil— bound in the chains of their own lu?ts. On the other hand, outward limitations, even physical restraints, fetters and dungeons do not mean captivity to the servants of God. Stone walls do nob a prison make. Do we not read how Paul and Silas, thrust into the inner prison at Philippi — scourged and with their feet fast in the stocks — prayed and sang praises unto God? In the body thoy were fast chained, and they knew not bub the morrow might; bring death as their only release. But in heart and soul they were free, and death, should it come, would but complete their deliverance. In bonds yet free. They are only bonds that bind the body. Those that bind the soul are far worse than these. What bondage can be heavier or more shameful and humiliating than that of the. drunkard ? How completely the passion is

his mi'sfcer, In vain does all that men most highly esteem— all that he in his better moments most highly esteems — plead against it. Social estimation, the respect and goodwill of his fellows, the comfort of his home, the well-being of wife and children, his own interests, all are thrown avay. How often does he curse his own folly in yielding himself at first to the insidious advances of what has seemed so fair a friend, but is now so bitter a foe — a slave-master in whose grip brain and nerve and muscle, will, mind and soul are held relentlessly, till the victim dies a drunkard's death, and goes to a drunkard's damnation, unless the grace of God deliver him. Or the gambler — beginning with what he thought an innocent little beb at the races — when, perhaps he was so unfortunate aa to win— then led on by the seduction of easily won gains, till now he finds himself utterly unable bo re&ist his passion. To feed it ho robs himself, robj his family, robs his tradesman, robs hisfemployer, and finishes in gaol, or by disgraceful flight,orperhaps bysuicide. Scarcely a coutt session comes and goes without throwing up some such wreck of what might have been an honourab'e and hopeful career. Yet no one of these wrecks was under compulsion, either to begin or to continue. Rather, every good influence strove to restrain tha downward career, lie has wound the chains round his own soul, and the devil has strengthened and tightened them. It; like manner, not so obviously or so offensively, but quite as effectually, does the greed of gain or the passion for amusemont wind its chains round the men and women who give way to them. In the one you see, along with the tightening of the purse strings, a gradual hardening of the heart, a growing insensibility to the claims of charity, and even of common justice, a grasping selfishness, meetening for the fire. In the other a gradual loss of the power of serious thought or serious application, an increase of frivolity, a love of excitement, a dependence on external means of happiness, so that by degrees quietness becomes intolerable, and themselves the worst and most unbearable of companions. Truth and earnestness of character gradually disappear, and with them all reverence for the good and;) the true, and at last the very power of appreciating what is good and true- To mock and giggle is all they care for, ridicule, not wrongdoing, the only thing they fear. All heart of reality and truth, of nobility and love, is eaten out of them, and an empty husk of seeming manhood or womanhood only left. The father of vanity and lies is master. Is this too stern an indictment, too hard words for small vices? Bub they are nob small. Is it nob obvious on the face of society that these are the besetting sins ot our day, bringing in their train every kind of social and political corruption, and that the habits of them are chains of a more degrading bondage than that of Israel in Egypt, or in Babylon|? No one would deny the value of industry and economy in the acquisition of money, or of prudence in the care of it. These are the foundation of independence and self-respect, and the means of charity. No one would deny the necessity of recreation, or its value a& an element of social well-being. It is not the use, but the abuse of ihese things that constitutes the danger to our own souls and to society, and when we see how often in the pursuit of gain every scruple of truth and honour seems to be cast away ; and in the pursuit of amusement a manifest weakening of the moral fibre., a decrease of reverence for the nobler side of character, a loss of appreciation for the quieter forms of home, of social, and of intellectual enjoyment that i are the real recreation we need, and an in- | creasing dislike of steady industry— when we see all this it is time to speak, and to speak plainly, else we clergy — whose office it is — tail grievously in our duty. Well, but these habits may be mended, perhaps, someone says; they are not a bondage. Are they not ? I will not deny that there are some cases in which men who have sunk very low, who have spent their all, perhaps, in riotous living, have pulled themselves together, and by strenuous efforts have recovered their position in their own and public estimation. Bub what a desperate struggle it has been ! What scats of old wounds, and pains of old diseases do they bear to the end ! How far short do they fall of what might have been but for the wasted years and waited strength, and wasted means. And how few, how very few succeed."